Development of a Miniature Pulse Tube Refrigerator

A development program of Pulse Tube Refrigerators is currently in progress at L'Air Liquide in collaboration with ENS.

The system was designed for space and military applications (about 1W at 80K). The pressure oscillation was given by the so called RH 820 oscillator manufactured by L'Air Liquide. For long life space applications, it can be easily changed for an “Oxford type” oscillator which has approximatively the same swept volume but a higher working frequency.

The cooling power measurements obtained with Double Inlet Pulse Tubes of different sizes and with different regenerators are compared with our analytical model.