Development of a Coaxial Pulse Tube Cryocooler for 77 K Cooling.

Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Center has developed a compact coaxial pulse tube cryocooler for avionics applications. The cooler was designed to deliver in excess of 1W cooling at 77K with a heat rejection temperature of 70°C, and to cool down from ambient temperature in a very short period of time. The cryocooler utilizes our MINI compressor, developed for NASA-GSFC, coupled with a newly-designed coaxial pulse tube designed to approximate the Standard Advanced Dewar Assembly (SADA II) packaging envelope. The cryocooler mass is 1.25 kg. Test data show excellent performance, with cooldown times of less than 6 minutes (coldhead only, with no additional thermal mass attached to the coldhead). Performance data will be shown for a variety of operating conditions. A discussion of low cost pulse tube cryocoolers will also be presented. This cryocooler was developed and tested with Lockheed Martin IRAD funding. © 2006 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]