Investigate the effect of regenerator mesh on cooling performance

Abstract

The regenerator is the heart of Stirling cryocooler. Proper selection of the regenerator mesh with high heat capacity in the operating temperature range is essential for the high effectiveness of the regenerator. To give better performance by the cryocooler, it is necessary to study characteristics of the regenerative matrix material, mesh size. In this paper, the physical properties of stainless steel and phosphor bronze were studied. In the FORTRAN software, the analysis was carried out by calculating the net refrigerating effect by considering different losses (conduction loss, temperature swing loss). The net refrigerating effect for mesh size 200, 250, 300, 350 and 400 was calculated. The optimum result obtained by cyclic analysis was considered for further validation. Two different displacer units were manufactured by filling 250 and 300 mesh separately. The testing was carried out for the same input conditions. The results were validated and compared with results obtained by thermal analysis.

KEYWORDS:

• Regenerator mesh
• regenerator matrix
• Stirling cycle
• cryocooler
• opposed piston linear compressor

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Indian Space Research Organisation, Space Technology Cell, Savitribai Phule Pune University [grant number PU/ISRO-STC/1786].