Development of miniaturized J-T cooler with thin-plate type sorption compressor for 5 K cooling

Abstract

A sorption J-T cooler for a cooling temperature of 5 K can be useful to cool the sensitive detectors and calorimeters, due to its vibration-free characteristic. It is a J-T cooler driven by the sorption compressor, that utilizes the adsorption phenomenon to create the pressure gradient. To maximize the mass flow rate, the switchless thin-plate type cell is adopted for the sorption compressor. The coiled tube-in-tube heat exchanger is fabricated to minimize the overall size of the cooler. After precooling the experimental apparatus with a two-stage G-M cooler, the open-loop test is performed to assess the mass flow rate characteristics of the J-T restrictor and the background heat ingress. In the closed-loop experiments, the cooling temperature below 5 K is achieved by the sorption compressor without heat load. The nominal mass flow rate from the sorption compressor is 1.3 mg/s with the pressure ratio between 5.9 and 6.6. Subsequently, the model of the heat exchanger is utilized to determine the maximum cooling capacity according to the inlet temperature of the high-pressure stream. Furthermore, the effectiveness and the overall COP of the sorption J-T cooler are analyzed. The maximum cooling capacity at 5 K in the experimental setup is predicted to be 3.4 mW and 4.9 mW with the original and improved heat exchangers, respectively.