LAUSR

Abstract The regenerator is the core segment of a regenerative cryogenic refrigerator. The phase characteristics at the cold and hot ends of the regenerator determine the cooling capacity, regenerator efficiency and electrical input work of the coupled compressor. The measurement of the regenerator phase characteristics can focus optimization in the right direction of the refrigerator prototype and be used to correct the theoretical predictions. As the phase characteristics of the regenerator are difficult to measure directly, an indirect measurement method is proposed in this paper based on the dual-driven Stirling cryocooler. The indirect method uses only displacement sensors and pressure transducers, which have advantages such as easy operation, no effect on the flow of the working gas and cooler performance. The influencing factors of the regenerator void volume mass flow were analyzed, and the experimental amplitudes and phase angles were compared with that predicted by a thermodynamic analysis method. Based on the statistical results of differences between the theory and experiments, a simple corrected method of the theoretical mass flow phasor at the void volume of the regenerator is given. When the mass flow at one end of the regenerator is known, the corrected method of the void volume mass flow can be used to estimate the mass flow at the other end of the regenerator. We used the above corrected method to estimate the mass flow at the cold end of the regenerator for a Stirling-type pulse tube cryocooler, and eventually give a new construction method of the theoretical phasor diagram for this type of cooler.