• Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.43-47
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• 2012

A linear compressor generates pulsating pressure and oscillating flow in a cryocooler such as Stirling cryocooler and pulse tube refrigerator. It is driven by AC power source and designed to operate at resonance of piston motion. The driving voltage level is determined by electric parameters of resistance, inductance and thrust constant of linear motor. From voltage equation on linear motor, the power factor of driving power is inherently less than 1. The phase difference between voltage and current of supplied power can be zero using capacitor and this can minimize a supply voltage level. Especially, the linear compressor of kW class requires high voltage and thus can cause a difficulty in selecting power supply unit due to limitation of voltage level. The capacitor in driving electric circuit is useful to settle this problem. In this study, the electric circuit of linear compressor is analytically investigated with assumption of mechanical resonance. The electric parameters of commercial linear motor are used in the analysis. The effects of capacitor on driving voltage level and power factor are investigated. From analytic results, it is shown that the voltage level can be mimized with using capacitor in driving electric circuit.

• Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.42-47
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• 2016

A free-piston reciprocating expander is a device which operates without any mechanical linkage to a stationary part. Since the motion of the floating piston is only controlled by the pressure difference at two ends of the piston, this kind of expander may indispensably require a sophisticated active control system equipped with multiple valves and reservoirs. In this paper, we have suggested a novel design that can further reduce complexity of the previously developed cryogenic free-piston expander configuration. It is a simple replacement of both multiple valves and reservoirs by a combination of an orifice valve and a reservoir. The functional characteristic of the integrated orifice-reservoir configuration is similar to that of a phase controller applied in a pulse tube refrigerator so that we designate the one as a phase controller. Depending on the orifice valve size in the phase controller, the different PV work which affects the expander performance is generated. The numerical model of this unique free-piston reciprocating expander utilizing a phase controller is established to understand and analyze quantitatively the performance variation of the expander under different valve timing and orifice valve size. The room temperature experiments are carried out to examine the performance of this newly developed cryogenic expander.

• Proceedings of the SAREK Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.186-191
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• 2008

In this study, a room temperature AMRR (Active magnetic regenerative refrigerator) was fabricated, and experimentally investigated. Gadolinium (Gd) was selected as a magnetic refrigerant with Curie temperature of 293 K. Permanent magnet was utilized to magnetize and demagnetize the AMR. To produce large magnetic field above 1 T in the magnetic refrigeration space, a special arrangement of permanent magnets, so called Halbach array, is employed. Sixteen segments of the permanent magnets magnetized different direction, constitute a hollow cylindrical shaped permanent magnet. The AMR is reciprocated along the bore of the magnet array and produces cooling power. Helium is selected as the working fluid and a helium compressor is utilized to supply helium flow to the regenerator. The fabricated AMRR has different structure and compared to a convectional AMRR since it has an additional volume after the regenerator. Therefore, the cooling ability is generated not only by magnetocaloric effect of magnetic refrigerant but also by the pulse tube effect. It is verified that the cooling ability of AMR is increased due to the magnetocalric effect by the fact that the temperature span becomes $16^{\circ}C$ while the temperature span is only $8^{\circ}C$ when the magnetic field is not applied to the regenerator.