MICROMINIATURE SPLIT STIRLING LINEAR CRYCOOLER

A. Veprik, S. Zehtzer, H. Vilenchik, and N. Pundak

Citation: AIP Conf. Proc. 1218, 363 (2010); doi: 10.1063/1.3422375

View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3422375
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Published by the American Institute of Physics.

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 MICRO-MINIATURE SPLIT STIRLING LINEAR
CRYCOOLER

A Veprik, S Zehtzer, H Vilenchik and N Pundak

Ricor, Cryogenic and Vacuum Systems, En Harod, 18960, Israel

ABSTRACT

Novel tactics for rescue, surveillance, reconnaissance, force protection, perimeter

security, navigation and targeting often involve the use of miniature infrared imagers,
where the cooled imaging systems are known to be superior to their uncooled rivals in
terms of working range, resolution and ability to distinguish/track fast moving objects in
dynamic infrared scenes. The latest technological advances in industrial applications of
high-temperature infrared detectors have spurred the development of linearly driven, long
life, dynamically quiet and aurally undetectable micro-miniature split Stirling linear
cryogenic coolers. Recent progress in designing highly efficient moving magnet resonant
linear actuators and dedicated smart electronics have enabled further improvements to the
cooler's size, weight, power consumption, cooldown time and ownership costs.
The authors report on the development of a novel micro-miniature split Stirling linear
cryogenic cooler, where, by means of increasing the driving frequency up to 90Hz, it
appeared possible to shorten the cold finger to 19mm. The cooler was specifically designed
to cool a new generation of 130K infrared detectors for portable infrared imagers, where
compactness, low steady-state power consumption, fast cool-down time, vibration export
and aural stealth are of primary concern.

KEYWORDS: high driving frequency, short cold finger, micro-miniature linear Stirling
cooler, high temperature infrared sensor, vibration, noise.

1. INTRODUCTION
Despite the recent advances in developing and fielding un-cooled infrared sensors, it
is still generally accepted that the best technology for true infrared heat detection is the
cooled detector" [1]. The cooled detectors are known to be superior to their un-cooled
competitors in terms of working range, resolution and ability to detect/track fast moving
objectsCREDIT LINEinfrared
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arrays (FPA) which are
121127, 136142, 207214, 246253, 355362, 388395, 499 506, 507514,
609614, 780787, 796803, 804811, 905912, 12911300, 13011308,
13691376, 15811592, 15931600, and 16471651

CP1218, Advances in Cryogenic Engineering: Transactions of the

Cryogenic Engineering Conference - CEC, Vol. 55, edited by J. G. Weisend II
2010 American Institute of Physics 0-7354-0761-9/10/$30.00

363

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 maintained at cryogenic temperatures (77K, typically) using Stirling closed cycle
cryogenic coolers.
Over the past few years industrial progress has led to the development of a new
InAlSb diode technology relying on Antimonide Based Compound Semiconductors
(ABCS), offering lower dark currents or higher operating temperatures (being in the 100K
region) [2]. The short wave IR technology [3] offers the possibility of operating a FPA at
ressor even higher temperatures, in excess of 200 K. The authors of [4] also report on a 320256
middle-wavelength infrared focal plane array based on an InAs quantum-dot/InGaAs
quantum-well/InAlAs barrier detector operating at temperatures of up to 200 K.
The direct benefit of using high-temperature FPAs is the ability to reduce the
necessary cooling constraints, immediately resulting in a simplified system design
incorporating smaller and more cost effective, long life thermal coolers, consuming less
electrical power and having faster cool-down times.
Traditionally, integral rotary cryogenic coolers have been employed to maintain the
FPA of such IR imagers at their optimal cryogenic temperatures. However, the inherent
drawbacks of these rotary coolers, such as limited lifespan and high wideband vibration
export, have spurred the development of the micro-miniature linear Stirling cryogenic
coolers. These novel, long-life, acoustically and dynamically quiet cryocoolers, while
being superior in many respects, appears to be comparable to the above rotary cryocoolers
in terms of bulk, power consumption and ownership costs. An additional advantage of the
linear cryocoolers, over their rotary rivals, is that, at least in theory, they may be driven at
elevated frequencies without compromising their reliability. Increasing the driving
frequency of the cryocooler allows the cold finger and regenerator length to be shortened,
thus allowing for a more compact IR imager with much improved cool-down times.
Based on previously acquired experience and field proven technologies, the Ricor
model K527 [5] cryogenic cooler was chosen to undergo the appropriate expander
downscaling. The authors report on the feasibility testing of this pilot prototype. This
modified model K527 (termed "Shorty") micro-miniature split Stirling linear cryogenic
cooler comprises of the standard K527 linear resonant "moving magnet" compressor and
pneumatically driven expander, where a cold finger was shortened from 44 to 19mm and a
driving frequency was increased from 68 Hz to 90 Hz.

2. RICOR K527 LINEAR COMPRESSOR

The single-piston linear compressor is driven by a moving magnet, resonant

eletrodynamic actuator. This configuration results in a high coefficient of performance
[5,6] and also allows the driving coil to be separated from the working agent (Helium),
thus preventing the cooler interior from being contaminated by the wire isolation varnish,
eliminates the need for flying leads and a feed-through connector. It is also important to
note that in such an approach, sinking the intrinsic Joule heating from the externally
located driving coil is much improved. Figure 1 shows the schematics of the linear
compressor. The magnet ring made of Neodymium-Ferrum-Boron material is placed
movably between the internal and external yokes (armature) made of a magnetically soft
Vanadium Permandure alloy and shaped in such a fashion so as to accommodate the
driving coil carrying the AC current and to provide for the uniform distribution of the
magnetic flux within the working air gap without over-saturating the armature's yokes [5].
Sufficient Eddy current control is achieved by cutting potential current paths.

364

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 External yoke
Radially
Compressor magnetized ring
piston

Compression
space

Cylinder liner

Internal
yoke
Support spring
Driving
coil Compressor
housing

FIGURE 1. Schematics of the linear compressor

In such an actuator the interaction of the permanent magnetic field produced by the
above magnet material with the alternating electromagnetic field delivered by the driving
coil yields the axial force which is applied to the magnet ring being bonded upon the
magnet form, which is in turn, rigidly attached to the compression piston. The latter is
arranged to slide freely inside the tightly matched cylinder liner being placed inside the
internal yoke.
For the sake of compactness, the support spring, which is needed for resonant
operation and centering of the piston-magnet assembly, is placed inside the piston.
Further, for the sake of performance, reduction of side forces, compactness, manufacturing
costs, ease of assembly and maintenance we have abandoned the fashionable idea of using
the so-called contactless approach relying on flexural bearings and accurate (sometimes
robotic) alignment and assembly [6]. A piston and cylinder liners are made of M42 steel
being hardened to HRc 65, machined to N3 and tightly matched to 4 Pm radial clearance;
no exotic surface treatment or plating were applied. The "seal length/diameter" ratio is 2.5.

(a) (b)

FIGURE 2. External layout and dimensions of a linear compressor

365

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 Additional advantage of this approach is that the piston-cylinder sleeves may be
matched more tightly as compared to the above contactless design; this results in a
substantial decrease in blow-by losses and better centering of the magnet ring inside the
tubular air gap. The latter is extremely important for eliminating side forces inherent for
the moving magnet actuator. The decision, to abandon the flexure bearing use is based on
the field proven technology used currently in the Ricor model K529N cryogenic cooler,
which, in the course of the accelerated life test, accumulated in excess of equivalent 45,000
working hours.
The "post mortem" inspection revealed that the outer diameter of the piston and inner
diameter of the cylinder liners were still within the manufacturing tolerances and that the
working surfaces were free of abrasive scratches and wear. The coolers failure resulted
from electrical short in the driving coil which occurred due to overheating of an
inappropriately chosen enamel type [7].

3. EXPANDER UNIT
Figure 3 shows the schematics of the pneumatically driven expander. In Figure 3, the
displacer-regenerator is attached to the stepped driving plunger and arranged so as to slide
freely inside the accurately aligned bushing and thin-walled (0.08mm) stainless steel cold
finger. A mechanical spring is located inside the rear volume. One of the spring ends is
attached to the static bushing and the other to the plunger tail using a flexural link for
possible misalignment compensation. The spring provides the centering, and sufficient
stroke and phase control for the displacer-regenerator assembly without using a pneumatic
pillow and damper. The required phase shift, between the pressure pulses arriving through
the transfer line and the displacer motion, is optimized so as to maximize the heat pumping
from the expansion space to which the FPA is attached. The regenerator is comprised of a
stack of #635 stainless steel mesh disks of optimized geometry and porosity. Figure 4
shows the external layout and dimensions of the "Shorty" cold finger.

4. COOLER OPTIMIZATION
The numerical model used for optimizing this novel cryocooler was a modification of
a previously proven Sage [8] numerical model for the basic K527 cryogenic cooler [5]. A
second level of fine tuning and optimization was performed on the first engineering series.
This basically involved varying the spring rates of the compressor and expander springs,
regenerator matrix material, charge pressure and driving frequency. The cooler
performance was assessed by comparing the steady state power consumption in the
temperature regulation mode for different added heat loads. The base heat load inherent to
the dynamically evacuated Dewar was measured to be 240 mW@77 K@23 C which is
equivalent to 206 mW@130 K@23 C. A particular amount of copper was added to the
cold finger tip in order to mimic the thermal mass (370 J) corresponding to 300 K to 130 K
cooldown of an actual FPA.
The added heat load ranged from 0 to 400mW thus mimicking a whole range of
possible applications. In the best obtained configuration, the charge pressure was 13 bar
and the optimal driving frequency was found to be 90 Hz. It is worth noting that this
frequency precisely equals the resonant frequency of a single degree of freedom "mass-
spring" system formed by a movable assembly "displacer-plunger" weighing 6.3 grams and
supported by a mechanical spring with a spring rate of 2000 N m .

366

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 Stepped Hot space Flexural li nk
Expansion Cold
space finger plunger

Displacer-
regenerator Transfer Rear
Bushing line Spri ng volume

FIGURE 3. Schematic and external layout of the expander

(a) (b)
FIGURE 4. External layout and dimensions
Figure 5.a shows dependencies of the steady state power consumed by the compressor
(in the temperature regulated mode) on the driving frequency at different added heat
loading, where the asymmetric minima are observed at approximately 90 Hz. It is worth
noticing that there is only a weak dependence of the cooler performance on the driving
frequency over the relatively wide frequency range of 80-92 Hz.
Using the above data, we performed a rough estimation of the acoustic (PV) power
delivered by the compressor. For this purpose we assume that the majority of the
2
compressor losses are related to Joule heating RI rms , where R 0.3 Ohm is the resistance
of the driving coil and I rms is the rms current. This assumption is fair for such small
compressors with tightly matched piston-cylinder arrangements operating at almost room
temperatures. In doing so, we use the formula for "shaft power" WPV W  RI rms 2
.
Figure 5.b shows the outcomes of this calculation, where the frequency dependencies of
the electrical and PV power in the temperature regulated mode are shown. It is very
instructive to see that the PV power demand is also minimized at 90 Hz; this indicates that
this frequency is optimal for the particular design of the expander/regenerator The above
obtained optimal driving frequency remained almost optimal over a wide range of ambient
temperatures and heat loadings; therefore all of the subsequent testing on attainable
performance was carried out using this particular driving frequency.

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 20 20

0 mW 0 mW
18 100 mW 18 100 mW
200 mW 200mW
300mW 300mW
16
16 400mW 400mW

14
14

12

PV Power, W AC
Power, W AC

12

10

10
8

8
6

6
4

4 2

2 0
60 70 80 90 100 60 70 80 90 100
Frequency, Hz Frequency, Hz

(a) (b)
FIGURE 5. Power consumed by the compressor (a) and delivered PV power (b) as functions of driving
frequency at different heat loadings

Further, we can calculate the compressor's coefficient of performance using the

expression COP WPV W . The calculation shows that the compressor's COP varies from
84% to 88% over the entire range of the studied driving frequencies and heat lifts; such
exceptionally high values of COP are comparable to those obtained for the large
compression systems consuming approximately 70 W as described in [9] and indicate
satisfactory actuator design.

5. EXPERIMENTATION ON ATTAINABLE PERFORMANCE

5.1. Cooler Performance at Different Ambient Temperatures

Figure 6 shows the dependency of the power consumed by the cooler's compressor
operating in a temperature regulated mode (at 130 K) on the added heat load ranging from
0 to 400mW at different environmental temperatures: - 40 C, -20 C, +23 C, +58 C and +71
C, thus covering the entire range of possible applications.
It is worth noticing, that the cooler is still in the initial stages of optimization and
modification. The authors have good reasons to believe that its performance with respect to
heat pumping efficiency may be further improved.

5.2.Cooldown Test
A typical cool-down path comprises of the three distinctive stages delivered by the
controller, namely: (1) soft start, (2) full power, (3) transient process of temperature loop
closure preceding the temperature regulation steady state operation.

368

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 30
Tamb=-40C Tamb=-20C Tamb=+23C Tamb=+58C Tamb=+71C

25

Power consumption, W AC 20

15

10

0
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
200
220
240
260

300
320

360
380
400
280

340
Added heat load, mW

FIGURE 6. Cooler performance at different ambient temperatures

310
290
270
250
230
210
T [K]
T [K], dT/dt [K/min]

190
170
150
130
110
90
dT/dt [K/min]
70
50
30
10
-10
0 40 80 120 160 200 240 280
Time, s

FIGURE 7. Cooldown from 300K to 130K

The first phase (soft start) involves the controllable ramping up of the driving
voltage/current from minimum to maximum values in order to avoid over-stroking in the
compressor and expander during the coolers warm operation without compromising its
cool-down time. The ramp rate can be programmed to be temperature or time dependant.
During the second stage (full power), the maximum voltage is delivered to the compressor
until it approaches the assigned target temperature.
During the cool-down test 300 K130 K with a thermal mass of approximately 370J,
the cooler consumed a maximum of 17 W AC of electrical power at its peak before a
transition to the closed loop temperature regulation mode.

369

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 Once temperature was regulated, the steady state power consumed by compressor was only
3 W AC, thus indicating sufficient margin. Figure 7 portrays the time variation of the cold
tip temperature T K superimposed on the cooling rate dT dt K min during the above
mentioned test. These graphs indicate approximately 80 seconds of cool-down time and a
smooth transition into the controllable mode. It is important to mention that such a fast
cool-down time is obtained exclusively due to the elevated driving frequency of 90Hz and
the compact regenerator design.

CONCLUSIONS

The designed and manufactured Ricor K527 "Shorty" cryocooler has a number of
unique features making it attractive for a wide variety of forthcoming high temperature
detectors. Among those features are an exceptionally high driving frequency (90Hz)
enabling it to have fast cool-down times and a shortened 19mm cold finger making
possible a very compact integrated Dewar-Detector-Cooler assembly, convenient and
effective heat sinking, low noise and vibration signature. The optimization effort,
however, is still in progress and the authors are expecting to even further improve the
major performance indices.

REFERENCES
1. Gething, M. Janes International Defense Review, 38, pp. 42-47 (2005)
2. Glozman, A., et al. Proceedings of SPIE, Infrared Technology and Applications XXXII , 6206, pp.
62060M (2006)
3. Tribolet, P., Costa, P., Fillon, P., Manissadjian, A. and Chorier, P. Proceedings of SPIE 47 Annual
Meeting, Infrared Technology and Applications XXVII (2002)
4. Tsao, S., Lim, H., Zhang, W. and Razeghi, M. Appl. Phys. Lett. 90 (2007)
5. Veprik, A., Vilenchik, H., Riabzev, S. and Pundak, N. Proceedings of Infrared Technology And
Applications XXXIII, Defense & Security Symposium (2007)
6. Rhlich, I., Wiedmann, T., Mai, M. and Petrie, J. Proceedings of Infrared Technology And Applications
XXXIII, Defense & Security Symposium (2007)
7. Nachman, I., Veprik, A. and Pundak, N. Proceedings of Infrared Technology And Applications XXXIII,
Defense & Security Symposium (2007)
8. Gedeon, D. Gedeon Associates (1999).
9. Redlich, R., Unger, R., Van der Walt N. Proceedings of International Compressor Engineering
Conference (1996)

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