CFD Simulation Inertance Tube Pulse Tube Refrigirator

Abstract

A commercial Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software package Fluent 6.1 is used to model the oscillating flow inside a pulse tube cryocooler. In this paper analysis of inertance tube pulse tube refrigerator (ITPTR) systems operating under a variety of thermal boundary conditions are modeled at different frequencies. The compressor used is having dual opposed piston arrangement. The simulations are done at different frequencies with helium gas as working fluid. The simulated ITPTR includes a compressor (dual opposed piston compressor), a transfer line, an after cooler, a regenerator, a pulse tube, cold and hot end heat exchangers, an inertance tube(very long narrow tube) and a reservoir. The simulation represents fully coupled systems oper¬ating in steady-periodic mode. The externally imposed boundary conditions are a cyclically moving piston wall at one end of the tube and constant temperature or heat flux boundaries at the external walls of the hot end and cold end heat exchangers. The experimental method to evaluate the optimum parameters