Investigation of synchronous effects of multi-mesh regenerator and double-inlet on performance of a Stirling pulse tube cryocooler

In this paper synchronous effects of multi-mesh regenerator and double-inlet on performance of a Stirling pulse tube cryocooler (SPTC) have been considered. In this respect, a finite volume code was developed to simulate the SPTC. Set of governing equations were written in a general form such that all porous and non-porous sections of the system could be modeled. Results showed that synchronous application of double inlet and multi-mesh regenerator optimizes the phase shift between velocity and pressure at the warm end of the pulse tube, increases the regenerator's outlet pressure amplitude, decreases inertial and viscous losses in the hot end of the regenerator and consequently increases the COP of the system. Furthermore, it was observed that a minimum temperature of 60.3 K and COP of 0.03996 @ 80 K is attainable using optimum multi-mesh regenerator and double inlet; whereas, for a simple SPTC with a uniform mesh regenerator, a minimum temperature of 71.3 K and maximum COP of 0.0227 @ 80 K are concluded. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.