Cryogenics 51 (2011) 341–346

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Cryogenics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cryogenics

Stirling-type pulse tube refrigerator with slit-type heat exchangers for HTS
superconducting motor
Taekyung Ki ⇑, Sangkwon Jeong 1
Cryogenic Engineering Laboratory, Division of Mechanical Engineering, School of Mechanical, Aerospace and System Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science
and Technology, Guseong-dong, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 305-701, Republic of Korea

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A cryogenic refrigeration system is one of the indispensable components for cooling superconducting
Available online 20 October 2010 motor or generator. Among various configurations of cryogenic refrigeration system, the on-board refrig-
eration system is considered to be attractive for compactness and small heat leak. In order to turn this
Keywords: concept into reality, we focus on two essential points; development of the specific structure for on-board
Stirling-type pulse tube refrigerator refrigeration and optimal design of the refrigerator. Since the on-board refrigeration system should not
Slit-type heat exchanger create unbalanced vibration, the inline Stirling-type pulse tube refrigerator is considered as a good can-
Flow straightener
didate and more concrete and efficient structure is developed under the design constraints. The dynamic
On-board refrigeration
absorber is used to maintain the dynamic stability of the single acting linear compressor. To increase
thermal Carnot efficiency with the on-board Stirling-type pulse tube refrigerator, slit-type heat exchang-
ers are implemented and flow straighteners are carefully designed by the three-dimensional CFD simu-
lation. The overall configuration of the Stirling-type pulse tube refrigerator is designed and fabricated by
the optimal process. The present on-board refrigerator has the cooling capacity of 7 W at 59.5 K with the
Carnot efficiency of 10.9%. According to these experimental results, the pulse tube refrigerator as the on-
board refrigeration system possesses a sufficient thermal efficiency despite the restricted design config-
uration. The on-board refrigeration is considered as a useful method for cooling HTS superconducting
motor.
Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction amount of heat leak from the connection part. Therefore, supercon-
ducting rotating machines may need more compact and efficient
Superconducting motors and generators have larger electric cooling system for true commercial applications.
power and higher efficiency than those of conventional motors In order to solve these problems, Zhang et al. [1] proposed that
and generators at the same size since they use superconducting the refrigeration system itself is directly attached to the rotor and
wire which reduces electrical power loss in the rotor field windings Nam et al. [2] demonstrated its feasibility under slowly rotating
and the stator without iron core. Additionally, the development of condition using a hybrid pulse tube refrigerator. Kim [3] experi-
High-Temperature Superconductor (HTS) material gives us more mentally studied performance change of pulse tube refrigerator
possibility for the practical application of superconducting rotor in the rotating system to the maximum rate of 1800 rpm. Accord-
by raising the operating temperature of superconductor. ing to their investigations, the performance change due to rotating
Superconducting machines, however, indispensably contain a effect was negligible. Choi [4] investigated the effect of rotation on
complicated cryogenic cooling system to sustain stable supercon- the performance of the pulse tube refrigerator under various
ducting condition of the rotor. Because the rotating part has been parameters such as pulse tube size, compressor capacity, and
separated from the cooling system in the case of conventional operating conditions using numerical analysis. Previous studies,
superconducting motors and generators, it must be necessary to however, focused on the possibility or the effect of rotation for
use a dynamic cryogenic fluid sealing and an additional component refrigeration system directly attached to the rotor. Thus, to
for removing heat from the rotating superconducting rotor to the promote future applications and to improve the stability of HTS
stationary cryogenic refrigerator. This complex configuration has superconducting system, we need more concrete and efficient
caused numerous engineering problems and also considerable design for the rotating refrigeration system.
This paper describes an optimal design and the structure for
⇑ Corresponding author. Fax: +82 42 350 8207. the on-board refrigeration of HTS superconducting motor. The
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (T. Ki), [email protected] (S. Jeong). Stirling-type pulse tube refrigerator with an axisymmetric
1
Fax: +82 42 350 8207. structure is adopted. All components of the Stirling-type pulse tube

0011-2275/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.cryogenics.2010.10.004
342 T. Ki, S. Jeong / Cryogenics 51 (2011) 341–346

refrigerator are optimally designed according to the constraints of minimizing electrical input and attaining the target efficiency.
the on-board refrigeration system and the thermodynamic analy- The single piston linear motor (Q-drive model 1S175M) is used
sis. Specially, slit-type heat exchangers have been optimally de- for the linear compressor of the PTR in this paper. The parameters
signed for the air-cooled aftercooler, the cold-end heat of the PTR are designed using a one-dimensional PTR design pro-
exchanger, and the air-cooled warm-end heat exchangers. This gram coupled with loss analysis. Major losses mainly occur in
configuration can eliminate unnecessary thermal contact resis- the regenerator and the pulse tube. Ineffectiveness loss is calcu-
tance problem which is usually encountered in the fabrication of lated by the net enthalpy flow generated in the regenerator. Free
the mesh-type heat exchanger. The paper also discusses flow dis- convection loss, shuttle loss, and second-order steady flow loss
tribution problem near the slit-type heat exchanger by carrying are all calculated by equations of previous study [5–7]. Governing
out the three-dimensional flow simulation. The pulse tube refriger- equations of the PTR containing loss analysis is optimally solved
ator has been numerically designed to attain the high efficiency. together with the wall conduction loss to achieve the Carnot effi-
The fabricated pulse tube refrigerator demonstrates sufficient ciency of 12% at 60 K. After the optimal design program produces
thermal efficiency and operational suitability as an on-board flow and thermal boundary conditions of the PTR, the design tool
refrigeration system. of the slit-type heat exchanger and the Computational Fluid
Dynamics (CFD) simulation are used for realization of these bound-
2. Design of pulse tube refrigerator ary conditions. The final configuration of the PTR is obtained by
feedback process and re-optimization process. The parameters of
2.1. Structure for on-board refrigeration the PTR finally designed from this optimal process are tabulated
in Table 1.
One of the most important things in the design stage of the
on-board refrigerator is that all the components of refrigeration 2.3. Slit-type heat exchanger
system should be designed concentrically and maintain dynamic
stability at high rotation speed. For this requirement, an inline Stir- The design of the air-cooled aftercooler is crucially important in
ling-type pulse tube refrigerator (PTR) is selected due to its high large cryocoolers because the heat to be rejected in the aftercooler
efficiency and a single piston linear motor equipped with the dy- increases in proportion to the capacity of the compressor. If the
namic absorber is used. As schematically shown in Fig. 1, all the compressed heat is not efficiently rejected to the ambient, the inef-
components from the compressor to the reservoir are located axi- fectiveness of the regenerator easily increases. The design of the
symmetrically to avoid unbalanced centrifugal force. For geometric warm-end heat exchanger (WHX) is also important because the
compatibility with the cryostat, the flanges of the pulse tube and heat generated in the pulse tube should be rejected to the outside
the warm-end heat exchanger are combined together with the environment efficiently. The design of the cold-end heat exchanger
flange of the cryostat. The torque tubes transferring a reliable tor- (CHX) is also critical. The cooling capacity of the PTR is directly
que generated in the superconducting field winding to the overall influenced by the temperature difference between the CHX and
system are located on both sides. In addition, a bellows is installed the gas flow conditions.
at the end of the pulse tube to prevent from being damaged by The slit-type heat exchanger has several advantages; it can have
cryogenic thermal contraction of each element. diverse configuration (straight or tapered shape) and no thermal
contact resistance problem usually encountered in a mesh-type
2.2. Optimal design one. The appropriate heat path of radial direction in a large scale
and high-power PTR is especially attractive. In this paper, the de-
The inline Stirling-type PTR is optimally designed to achieve the sign tool of the slit-type heat exchanger is implemented to increase
Carnot efficiency of 12% at 60 K. The optimal design process means accuracy and reliability of the design. The design tool in this paper
that the overall parameters of the PTR are efficiently designed for is the in-house program of the slit-type heat exchanger according

Compressible volume
and cylinder Dynamic
absorber
Superconducting
frame Aftercooler
Torque tube
Pulse tube
Torque tube

Regenerator Linear
compressor
Cold-end
Bellows heat exchanger
Inertance
tube Cryostat
Reservoir Warm-end
heat exchanger
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the on-board system.
 T. Ki, S. Jeong / Cryogenics 51 (2011) 341–346 343

Table 1 Compressible Flow

Geometric parameters and operating conditions. Aftercooler
volume straightener
Specifications of the PTR
Compressible volume 44.7 mm
Regenerator 31.75 mm (OD), 76 mm (L), 0.681 (ev )
Pulse tube 12.7 mm (OD), 138 mm (L)
Inertance tube 1 4.76 mm (OD), 0.646 m (L)
Inertance tube 2 6.35 mm (OD), 2.49 m (L)
Reservoir volume 1000 cm3
Operating conditions and the result
Frequency 56.4 Hz
Charging pressure 3.2 MPa

Cold-end
to the Ref. [8]. Specially, since the aftercooler and the CHX have dif- Regenerator heat exchanger Pulse
ferent diameters at the front and back sides, the tapered slit has Flow tube
been considered. Design results of the heat exchangers are incor- straightener
porated in the design program of the PTR. The aftercooler and
the WHX are designed as the air-cooled type for suitability of rotat-
ing superconducting rotor. Parameters of each slit-type heat ex-
changer and the designed heat load are tabulated in Table 2. The
slit-type heat exchanger, however, has some flow distribution
problem. To overcome this shortcoming, the flow straightener is Flow
carefully designed and utilized in the PTR. straightener

2.4. CFD simulation

Since the slit-type heat exchanger has some flow distribution

problem and a one-dimensional design program of the PTR cannot
fully optimize the flow distribution, uniformity of incoming flow Warm-end
condition in the pulse tube and the slit should be guaranteed for heat exchanger
good performance. Fig. 2. Locations of flow straighteners.
Fluent (a commercially available CFD code) [9], is utilized to
understand and solve these problems. As shown in Fig. 2, flow
straighteners made of copper wire mesh (# 100) are located in the optimum length of flow straightener is selected to ensure uni-
front of the aftercooler, between the CHX and the pulse tube, be- formity of flow distribution. The optimum length of flow straight-
tween the WHX and the pulse tube, and between the WHX and eners is 6 mm, 3 mm, 3 mm, and 3 mm in front of the aftercooler,
the inertance tube. The three-dimensional CFD simulation is per- between the CHX and the pulse tube, between the WHX and the
formed to determine the proper configuration of the flow pulse tube, and between the WHX and the inertance tube, respec-
straightener. tively. As shown in Fig. 3, optimum length of the flow straightener
In the flow simulation, the pressure-based numerical solver and produces satisfactory uniformity of velocity profiles according to
the k–e model are used to describe turbulent flow fields and tran- radial direction. Specially, the flow straightener is very important
sient condition. Because the channel of the slit-type heat exchan- in case of large diameter and sudden diameter change. Fig. 3a
ger has a very large aspect ratio, grids of all simulations are and b shows the inlet axial velocity in the slit of the aftercooler
carefully generated and evaluated to eliminate the effect of grid and the outlet axial velocity in the flow straightener of the CHX,
size and quality. In order to specify inlet and outlet pressure oscil- respectively. Since the aftercooler has a large diameter and the
lating conditions and temperature gradient, the results of the 1-D CHX has sudden diameter change section, the characteristic of
design program are first used for determining boundary condition, the velocity profile dependent on the flow straightener can be eas-
and these conditions are considered using a user defined function ily identified. In these situations, it is evident that the optimal de-
(UDF) developed in C programming language. In porous zones sign of the flow straightener is very important.
(flow straightener), the momentum equation includes a source
term which needs to specify viscous and inertial resistance factors 2.5. Dynamic absorber
as input for these zones. These parameters are introduced in previ-
ous studies [10,11]. The dynamic absorber is an important component in the on-
In the given oscillating flow boundary conditions, velocity pro- board refrigeration system to maintain the dynamic stability. It is
files and pathlines are calculated in the channel of the slit-type mainly constituted by flexure and balancing mass. For designing
heat exchangers and the incoming flow of the pulse tube. Finally, the flexure, the spring stiffness and the applied force should be cal-

Table 2
Specifications of slit-type heat exchangers.

Slit-type heat exchanger Inlet height (mm) Outlet height (mm) Thickness of the slit (mm) Number of slits Length (mm) Lifted heat (W)
Aftercooler (air-cooled) 26 14 0.35 20 112 300
CHXa 14 5 0.30 20 25 –
WHX (air-cooler) 4.5 4.5 0.30 16 35 25
a
Number and length of slits in the cold-end heat exchanger are designed for temperature difference of 0.3 K between the gas and the surface of the heat exchanger.
344 T. Ki, S. Jeong / Cryogenics 51 (2011) 341–346

(a) 25 Table 3
Specifications of the dynamic absorber.
0 mm Flow straightener
20 6 mm Flow straightener Parameter Value
Axial velocity (m/s)

Type of the flexure Involute curve

Total spring stiffness 362 kN/m
15 Effective mass of the flexure 53.5% of the total mass
Balancing mass 2.88 kg
10 Resonant frequency 56.4 Hz

5
direction; x0 the maximum axial deflection of the flexure; r is the
radial direction.
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 The axial deflection of the flexure with respect to radial direc-
Radial direction (mm) tion is considered as a non-linear form. When the effective mass
of the flexure sustaining the piston of the linear compressor is
determined, Eq. (2) is used for approximately determining the axial
(b) 2.5
deflection of the flexure with respect to radial direction [12].

2.0 xðrÞ ¼ x0 ð1  r 4 Þ
Axial velocity (m/s)

ð2Þ
From the Eq. (2), the effective mass of the flexure is obtained as
1.5
53.3% of the total mass. Eq. (2), however, is based on the situation
of moving center and fixing maximum radius of the flexure. In the
1.0 situation of actual dynamic absorber, the flexure is in opposite con-
dition. Therefore, the effective mass of the flexure is 46.7% of the
0.5 1 mm Flow straightener total mass, relatively. The result, however, is obtained by the rough
3 mm Flow straightener assumption, and the resonant frequency of the dynamic absorber
0.0 can sensitively change according to the change of the balancing
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 mass. Accordingly, the effective mass of the flexure is calibrated
Radial direction (mm) from numerous experiments and it turns out to be 53.5% of the to-
tal mass in the actual condition of the dynamic absorber. The con-
(c) 20 figuration of the dynamic absorber used in the experiment is
tabulated in Table 3.
16
Axial velocity (m/s)

3. Experimental set-up and instrumentation

12
The experimental set-up of the PTR is shown in Fig. 4. For the
8 on-board refrigeration system, all components of the PTR are fab-
ricated in an axisymmetric structure. To bridge the impedance be-
4 0 mm Flow straightener tween the compressor and the CHX [13], the compressible volume
3 mm Flow straightener (transfer tube) of 57.15 mm Outside Diameter (OD) and 43 mm
length has been added. The regenerator composed by 316 stainless
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 steel wire mesh of # 400 has been fabricated in 31.75 mm OD,
Radial direction (mm) 76 mm length, and 0.4 mm thickness with the porosity of 0.681.
The pulse tube has 12.7 mm OD, 138 mm length, and 0.3 mm
Fig. 3. Axial velocity profiles. (a) Inlet of the slit in the aftercooler. (b) Outlet of the thickness. An inertance tube has been fabricated as the double-
flow straighter in the CHX. (c) Inlet of the slit in the WHX. diameter type. The small tube of 4.76 mm OD and the large tube
of 6.35 mm OD have 0.646 m length and 2.49 m length, respec-
culated for actual operation condition. In this paper, the applied
tively. The charging pressure and the operating frequency are
force and the spring stiffness obtained from the design program
3.2 MPa and 56.4 Hz, respectively.
of the PTR and the previous study [8] are used in determining
In order to measure the resonant frequency of the piston, the
the configuration of the flexure. The involute curve and the config-
piston displacement and the current are measured by an acceler-
uration of flexure are determined by fatigue Finite Element Method
ometer positioned at the axis of the piston and the current sensor
(FEM) analysis. Six identical flexures are manufactured from this
positioned at the compressor cable. The E-type thermocouple mea-
analysis result.
sures the exit surface temperature of the aftercooler for the com-
The most important thing in designing the balancing mass is the
parison with the simulation results. In the CHX, two silicon diode
effective mass of the flexure contributing to the total balancing
sensors (DT-670D, lakeshore) are mechanically mounted for mea-
mass. Based on kinetic and potential energy equations, the effec-
suring the temperature and a heater is attached on the surface of
tive mass of the flexure is calculated as the area-weighted dis-
the CHX to measure the cooling capacity. The static pressure sensor
placement squared divided by the maximum axial deflection
is installed at the back surface of the compressor to measure the
squared in the following equation:
pressure of the bouncing volume. All measured data are collected
R1
Me x2 ðrÞ2prdr by NI-board (SCXI-1000, 1125, 1327 and 1328) and handled by
0
¼ ð1Þ LABVIEW.
M px20
Additionally, to reduce further thermal conduction loss through
where M is the total mass of the flexure; Me the effective mass of the the instrumentation wires, all sensor lines and heater wires are
flexure; x the axial deflection of the flexure with respect to radial thermally anchored at the regenerator or pulse tube [14]. Finally,
 T. Ki, S. Jeong / Cryogenics 51 (2011) 341–346 345

(a)
Warm-end
Superinsulation
heat exchanger

Temperature
Bellows sensors

Pulse
tube Anchoring
Heater
at cold-end

Cold-end
Regenerator
heat exchanger

Aftercooler

Fig. 5. Photo of the PTR with superinsulation and anchoring.

(b)
Compressible Dynamic
Cryostat volume absorber 300

Temperature (K) 299

298

297

296
Measured temperature
Air-cooled Linear 295 Designed temperature
system compressor
10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Time (Min)
Fig. 4. Configuration of the on-board PTR and system. (a) On-board PTR.
(b) On-board system. Fig. 6. Exit surface temperature of the aftercooler.

10 Multi Layer Insulation (MLI) sheets supported by G10 tubes are

320
applied to reduce the radiation heat invasion. Specially, the G10
tubes are installed as the support to prevent MLI sheets from con- 280
tacting the PTR and fix MLI sheets using threads. Fig. 5 shows the
Temperature (K)

240
photograph of the PTR with superinsulation.
200

4. Results and discussion 160

120
The exit gas temperature of the aftercooler is very important
because it directly contributes to the effectiveness of the regener- 80
ator. The exit surface temperature of the aftercooler is compared 40
with the result of the design tool of the slit-type heat exchanger 0 10 20 30 40
to indirectly estimate the exit gas temperature of the aftercooler.
Time (min)
Fig. 6 shows the exit surface temperature of the aftercooler. The
measured temperature at the exit surface of the aftercooler is be- Fig. 7. Cooling down processes of the PTR.
tween 295 K and 300 K. The actual exit surface temperature of
the fabricated slit-type aftercooler is slightly higher than the de- temperature. Fig. 8 shows the measured curve of cooling capacity
signed exit surface temperature of the aftercooler. The experiment with respect to temperature. The cooling capacity is 7 W and
result indicates that the slit-type heat exchanger is designed and 10 W at 59.5 K and 65.5 K, respectively.
fabricated with relatively small error. The Carnot efficiencies of the on-board PTR, the target, and
Fig. 7 shows show a typical cool down process for the on-board other cryocoolers [15,16] are shown in Fig. 9 for comparison. The
PTR. The obtained no load temperature is 47 K in the ambient tem- on-board PTR has the Carnot efficiency of 10.9% and 14.1% at
perature of 293.15 K. It takes 35 min to cool down to this temper- 59.5 K and 65.5 K, respectively. It is slightly lower than our target.
ature. Maximum electrical input is 273 W at the lowest We believe that the optimal operating condition is not completely
346 T. Ki, S. Jeong / Cryogenics 51 (2011) 341–346

of the Stirling-type PTR have been located in the coaxial line and
10 the dynamic stability is effectively maintained by the designed
Cooling capacity (W)

dynamic absorber. For efficient operation of the on-board PTR,

8 slit-type heat exchangers are implemented in all parts of the heat
exchanger and the CFD simulation is used to alleviate the flow non-
6 uniformity problem. The results show that the on-board PTR has
the Carnot efficiency of 10.9% at 59.5 K in spite of the severe con-
4 figuration constraints. The on-board PTR with slit-type heat
exchangers is considered to have useful performance for HTS
2 superconducting motor.

0 Acknowledgement
48 52 56 60 64
Temperature (K)
This work was supported by the Korea Science and Engineering
Fig. 8. Cooling capacity line. Foundation (KOSEF) Grant funded by the Korea Government
(MOST) (No. R0A-2007-000-20062-0).

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5. Conclusion

The on-board PTR has been designed and fabricated for super-
conducting rotor. Due to the structural constraint, all components