Highly compact, light-weight and effective recuperator with low pressure loss for next-generation, ultra-reliable reverse-Brayton cryocooler

"RTI will design and optimize a recuperative heat exchanger that is compact, lightweight, and has high effectiveness with low pressure loss, using a novel design concept. Based on preliminary analysis, the heat exchanger is expected to be approximately3X3X7.5 cm in linear dimensions, weigh about 0.085 kg (3 oz or 0.188 lb), have an effectiveness of 0.992 and a pressure drop of 6000 - 8000 Pa using Neon at a flow rate of 0.00181 kg/s. The Phase II goal is to fabricate and test the recuperator and then tointegrate it with other components and demonstrate a single-stage reverse turbo Brayton cycle (RTBC) cryocooler that will provide a cooling of 20 W at 80 K, with the minimum and maximum cycle temperature being 64K and 440 K respectively. The overall powerconsumption will be 240 W and COP at least 0.083. The whole RTBC cooler is expected to be 6.4 cm (2.5 inch) in diameter, 15 cm (6 inch) in length and 0.91 kg (2 lb) in weight. This RTBC cryocooler is expected to simultaneously satisfy the requirements of adesirable cryocooler for space applications, with very high reliability, high COP, compact size, and light weight. In addition, there will be negligible or no vibration of the cold head. The proposed recuperator will enable a highly reliable, compact,light-weight and efficient cryocooler with significant improvement in performance compared to the current state-of-the-art. This cryocooler is expected to find niche applications in milita