Numerical and experimental characterization of the inertance effect on pulse tube refrigerator performance
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abstract
A synergistic investigation of numerical and experimental studies is reported to elucidate the effects of the inertance tube length and diameter on the flow physics and the performance of a single stage inertance pulse tube refrigerator (IPTR). A time-dependent axisymmetric compressible computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model of the IPTR is used to predict its performance. The phase relationships between the pressure and the mass flow in the regenerator, pulse tube and inertance tube regions and the performance of the system are determined from the numerical simulations. The predictions from the computational model show that the phase angle difference between the pressure and the velocity at the center of the regenerator is the minimum and the pressure amplitude is the maximum at the optimum inertance value that leads to the largest acoustic power. In the experimental studies, the effect of inertance is studied for tubes of two different diameters and various lengths. The effect of input power supplied to the PTR on its performance was also studied. The experimental results complement the observations from the numerical simulations. 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
