A Flight-like Integrated Circulator for Broad Area Cooling

Future instruments and platforms for NASA space applications will require increasingly sophisticated thermal control technology, and cryogenic applications will become increasingly more common. For example, the Single Aperture Far-IR (SAFIR) telescope and other cryogenic telescope missions must provide distributed cooling and multiple heat lift. Also, the management of cryogenic propellants requires distributed cooling through integrated heat exchangers for zero boil-off, densification and cooling of structural members. To address these requirements, we propose to develop a lightweight, continuous-flow cooling loop that can provide cooling and temperature control to multiple, distributed and broad area loads. This approach allows relatively simple mechanical and electrical integration and maintains high refrigeration system efficiency. The basis of the loop is a set of cold check valves that converts the oscillating pressure, which characterizes the operation of regenerative cryocoolers, into a quasi-steady pressure difference that can be used to drive a continuous flow of cold gas over distances of several meters. This Integrated Circulator (IC) has the potential secondary benefit of rapid and therefore precise load temperature regulation of multiple sensors or structures using actively controlled throttle valves to regulate the local gas flow.

There are numerous potential commercial applications for zero-boil-off technology. It has been pointed out, that ZBO would be advantageous for systems used to cool superconducting power lines, superconducting magnets for power generation and energy storage, high temperature superconducting filters for cellular telephone base stations, and MRI magnets and SQUID magnetometers for heart and brain studies. In each of these applications, cryocooler reliability is an issue. Using a system cooled by a ZBO dewar addresses the reliability issue by ensuring that cooling liquid is always present. In the event of a cooler failure, the stored liquid provides a buffer i.e., a period of time during which the cooler may be repaired, or at worst the dewar refilled. It seems, then, that there exists a large potential market for ZBO technology and hence the PTC/IC proposed here.

There are many potential NASA applications for the Integrated Circulator(IC). A pulse tube cooler with an IC (PTC/IC) can provide active shielding and re-liquefaction for zero-boil-off (ZBO) dewars. For example, the manned Mars mission, which requires the in-situ manufacture of propellant, will require the capability to store seed hydrogen, as well as, liquid oxygen and liquid methane for substantial periods of time. NASA also has terrestrial applications for zero-boil-off technology, including cryogenic propellant preservation. Other applications are cooling large deployable telescopes and multiple distributed loads such as CCD cameras

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