Advanced Regenerators for Very Low Temperature Cryocoolers

Proposed is a new concept for high effectiveness regenerative heat exchangers which are critically needed to develop efficient cryocoolers for operation at temperatures of 10K and below. Development of light weight, power efficient, long life cryocoolers capable of providing refrigeration at and below 10K has become a critically-pacing technology for spaceborne instrumentation. The best current 10K cryocoolers are impractically large, inefficient, and unreliable for aerospace applications. This is largely due to fundamental problems wither regenerator ineffectiveness at very low temperature. The new type of regenerators proposed offers for 10K cryocoolers the proposed of reductions of 100s of wats of power and kilograms of weight per watt of refrigeration, and extension of operating life by 10,000's of hours. The proposed research will define the analytical modeling, thermofluid performance trade-offs, material properties, production and test methods for such high effectiveness regenerators.