Development of Single and Two-Stage Pulse Tube Cryocoolers with Commercial Linear Compressors

Sunpower, Inc. and Gedeon Associates partnered to develop single and two-stage pulse tube cryocoolers under Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) funding from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The development centered around using the high-efficiency, low-cost linear compressor that Sunpower has already taken to the manufacturing level with its M87 Stirling cryocooler. The primary goal was to demonstrate efficient cooling at 77K with a single-stage pulse tube cold head. Both in-line and u-tube configurations of single-stage pulse tube cold heads were fabricated and tested. Cooling at 30 K with a two-stage cold head was a secondary goal undertaken to gain experience with multi-staging. The second stage was designed as an add-on component to the single-stage u-tube configuration. All designs implemented inertance tubes as acoustical tuning devices. The ultimate objective was to establish the commercial potential of linear-compressor driven pulse tube cryocoolers and whether they could be cost competitive with the Sunpower M87 Stirling cryocooler.