Cryogenics 121 (2022) 103408

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Cryogenics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cryogenics

Experimental study on the effect of aftercooler configuration on the

performance of pulse tube cryocoolers
Yukio Yasukawa a, b, *, Noboru Matsumoto a, Yuki Ueda b
a
Corporate R&D Headquarters, Fuji Electric Co., Ltd., 1, Fuji-machi, Hino, Tokyo 191-8502, Japan
b
Graduate School of Bio-Applications and Systems Engineering, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, 2-24-16 Nakacho, Koganei, Tokyo 184-8588, Japan

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: An aftercooler for a pulse tube cryocooler (PTC) was experimentally investigated. The aftercooler is the heat
Aftercooler exchanger on the high-temperature side and one of the main components of a PTC. Three types of aftercoolers
Heat exchanger were studied: a mesh type with complex flow channels, a square hole type and a circular hole type with uniform
Pulse tube cryocooler
flow channels. The mesh type has high heat transfer characteristics but also a large viscous loss, while the latter
Oscillatory flow
Thermoacoustic theory
two types have low heat transfer but also small viscous loss due to their uniform flow channels. In this study, one
mesh type and two circular hole type aftercoolers were constructed, and their heat transfer characteristics in
steady flow, and the cooling performance of the PTC were experimentally evaluated. In the steady flow exper­
iments, the mesh type aftercooler showed higher heat-transfer performance than the circular hole type after­
coolers. Next, an oscillatory flow experiment was conducted by installing the aftercoolers into a PTC. The PTC
with the circular multi-hole type aftercoolers showed better cooling performance than the PTC with the mesh
type aftercooler, contrary to the results of the steady flow experiment. To investigate the reason for this dif­
ference, we evaluated the power loss in the aftercooler and measured the temperature distribution along it in
oscillatory flow experiments, and found that the mesh type aftercooler showed characteristics different from
those of the other aftercoolers. Based on these results and the relationship between the flow channel radius and
the thermal boundary layer thickness, the issues with the mesh type aftercooler were clarified and necessary
information for an improved design was developed.

1. Introduction
Miniature Stirling-type pulse tube cryocoolers (PTCs) have no mov­
ing parts on the low-temperature side, resulting in compactness and high
reliability. Because of this, PTCs are widely used for cooling sensors
[1,2]. The performance of PTCs has been greatly improved by the
inertance-type phase shifter [3], and the size and weight of PTCs have
been reduced by increasing the operating frequency and charge pressure
[4,5].
One of the important components of a PTC is the aftercooler. The
aftercooler rejects heat from the inside to the outside of a PTC, and hence
low aftercooler performance results in increased temperature inside a
PTC. Furthermore, the importance of the aftercooler increases for large-
cooling-capacity PTCs [6,7]. Some numerical analyses and experimental
studies for the typical aftercooler configuration have been reported
[8–11]. There are two typical configurations. One has complex flow
channels and the other has uniform flow channels. An aftercooler with
complex flow channels has the advantage of achieving high heat transfer
but has the disadvantage of causing large viscous losses, while an
aftercooler with uniform flow channels has the advantage reducing
viscous losses but has the disadvantage of low heat transfer. Typical
examples of complex flow channels include mesh or random fiber types,
while uniform flow channels are typically square or circular hole types
[12–16].
To design an aftercooler, the contact surface area and flow channel
radius in it are considered. As an example, Table 1 shows the published
results for the specific contact surface area, which is the contact surface
area normalized by the volume of the aftercooler, and its interior
channel radius r0 . The channel radius r0 is half of the length of the
shorter side of the square holes or the radius of circular holes, while r0
for the mesh type aftercooler body is calculated based on an experi­
√̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅
mental evaluation of r0 = dh dwire /2 (where dh is the hydraulic

Abbreviations: PTC, Pulse tube cryocooler; CM, Copper mesh; MH, Multi-hole; TB, Tube bundle; HEX, Heat exchanger.
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: yasukawa-y@fujielectric.com (Y. Yasukawa).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cryogenics.2021.103408
Received 1 August 2021; Received in revised form 12 November 2021; Accepted 29 November 2021
Available online 11 December 2021
0011-2275/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Y. Yasukawa et al. Cryogenics 121 (2022) 103408

Table 1
Flow channel radius and specific contact surface area [12,14,15].
PTC # PTC1[12] PTC2[14] PTC3[14] PTC4[15] PTC5[15]

Heat exchanger Aftercooler Aftercooler Aftercooler Cold-head Cold-head

Geometric configuration Mesh Square holes Square holes Square holes Square holes
r0 [mm] 0.072 0.15 0.17 0.1 0.15
Specific contact surface area [mm2/mm3] 13.5 0.56 1.63 0.68 0.69

diameter and dwire is the mesh wire diameter) reported by Ueda et al.
[17].
In Table 1, PTC 1, which provides 50 W of net cooling power at 50 K,
has the mesh type aftercooler reported by Lewis et al. [12]. This after­
cooler has the largest specific contact surface area among the listed heat
exchangers, more than about 10 times larger than any other. This is the
advantage of the mesh type heat exchanger. Lewis et al. assumed that
the flange and screen material were diffusion bonded to form a complete
part for ideal thermal contact. In contrast, it has the smallest r0 , resulting
Copper mesh (CM) Multi-hole (MH) Tube bundle (TB) in relatively large viscous losses. PTCs 2 and 3 constructed by Ki et al.
[14] have a slit type aftercooler, which can be categorized as examples
Fig. 1. Three types of aftercooler body.
of the multi-hole type. Ki et al. considered that the slit type aftercooler
had advantages of diverse configurations and had a smaller thermal
Table 2 contact resistance than the mesh type aftercooler. The specific contact
Parameters for aftercoolers considered herein surface area of the heat exchangers in PTCs 2 and 3 is approximately one
tenth of that in PTC 1, and their r0 value is twice as large as that for PTC
Copper mesh Multi-hole Tube bundle
1. Ki et al. investigated the total thermal surface contact area while
Joining Brazing Shrink-fitted Brazing & shrink-
keeping viscous losses low. PTCs 4 and 5 have slit type cold heads with a
method fitted
Diameter 20 mm 21 mm 22 mm
10-W cooling capacity at 77 K, as reported by Pang et al. [15]. Pang et al.
Length 20 mm 20 mm 20 mm mainly studied the influence of the slit width and slit number in cold
Specifications Mesh No./ Hole diameter/ OD/Thickness/ heads experimentally; while keeping their specific surface contact area
Porosity: Porosity: Porosity: constant, the effect of r0 was investigated. As described above, there
#100/0.629 1 mm/0.630 1.6 mm/0.15 mm/
have been some experimental investigations about the effects of contact
0.735
surface area and flow channel radius on the performance of a PTC, but,
however, it is unclear which configuration is better for an aftercooler.
In this study, to determine the optimal configuration for an after­
1 2 3 4 5 cooler in a PTC, we constructed and tested three types of aftercooler:
copper mesh (CM), circular multi-hole (MH), and tube bundle (TB)
aftercoolers. As described in detail below, the first two are typical
aftercoolers, and the last one is modified from the MH aftercooler to
increase the surface contact area and decrease viscous losses. To eval­
uate the heat-transfer performance, the three aftercoolers were first
tested under steady flow conditions. Subsequently, they were installed
in a PTC, and the cooling performance was measured. Although it was
found that the CM aftercooler had the best heat transfer performance,
1. Aftercooler, 2. Regenerator, 3. Cold-head, 4. Pulse tube, 5. Warm HEX
the cooling performance of a PTC with the CM aftercooler was worse
than that with the MH and TB aftercoolers. These results are discussed
based on the estimated power loss in the three aftercoolers and the
measured temperature distribution.

2. Aftercooler configuration

An aftercooler is composed of a main body and an outer casing,

which are made of a copper-based material [18]. The main bodies are
shown in Fig. 1. For the CM aftercooler, silver-coated copper meshes
(main body) were stacked, pressed into an outer casing, and finally
: Gas temperature brazed via heat treatment. Each part was metallurgically bonded to each
other by this heat treatment. For the MH aftercooler, circular holes were
: Wall temperature machined in a copper column, which is the main body, and was shrunk
fit into an outer casing. For the TB aftercooler, a number of small copper
: Pressure
pipes were coated with silver on their periphery and were then placed
into a copper cylinder, drawn to a predetermined size, and brazed via
Cooling pipe heat treatment to form the main body. Each part was metallurgically
bonded in the same way as the CM aftercooler. The TB aftercooler was
Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of experimental setup for steady flow (Top: Overall constructed to shrink-fit the main body into an outer casing. The main
configuration. Bottom: Detailed diagram of aftercooler and measure­ parameters for the aftercoolers are summarized in Table 2. The volume
ment locations). of each aftercooler was designed to provide sufficient heat transfer

2
Y. Yasukawa et al. Cryogenics 121 (2022) 103408

80 pressure were measured. Hot helium gas was supplied to the experi­
CM mental setup from the left-hand side of Fig. 2 through direct connection
70 MH to a gas cylinder. The outlet gas flowed out through valves controlling
TB
60
Fitting for CM the pressure and flow rate. The valves were connected to the
50 Fitting for MH atmosphere.
Fitting for TB Sheath-type thermocouples were used to measure the working gas
Tg [ ]

40 temperature. Because the sheathed thermocouples had a rod shape with

30 an outer diameter of 0.3 mm, they were inserted into one of the holes of
the MH and TB aftercoolers. For the CM aftercooler, a hole with an inner
20
diameter of 1 mm was machined in the traverse direction from outside,
10 and then the same type of thermocouple was inserted. To measure the
0 temperature of the outer-casing wall, which is labeled Tw in Fig. 2,
0.0 5.0 10.0 15.0 20.0 25.0 grooves were made on the outer casing and thermocouples were inserted
x [mm] into them with highly thermally conductive resin. All of the thermo­
couples were T-type (JIS Class 1). As shown in Fig. 2, the working gas
Fig. 3. Measured gas temperatures and fitting curves in steady flow. temperature along the center axis of the aftercooler was measured at
four points along the flow direction, whereas the outer-casing wall
temperature was measured at three points. The inlet gas temperature
30
CM
was set to 50 – 65 ◦ C, while the cooling water temperature was set to
28 18 ◦ C. The inlet gas pressure was set to 1.7 – 2.1 MPa. These conditions
MH
26 TB allow the amount of heat during steady flow to be equivalent to the
Fitting for CM
24
Fitting for MH rejected heat at the aftercooler during oscillatory flow, as described in
22 Fitting for TB Section 4. An amount of heat of 10 – 40 W can be produced under these
Tw [ ]

20 conditions. The steady flow rate is one-tenth of the typical oscillatory

18 flow rate. Because the flow is laminar in the case of oscillatory flow, we
16 consider that the thermo-fluid characteristics measured in the steady
14 flow experiment are approximately equivalent to those in the oscillatory
12 flow experiment.
10
0.0 5.0 10.0 15.0 20.0 25.0 3.2. Results of steady flow experiment

x [mm] The heat transfer characteristics of the aftercooler were evaluated

Fig. 4. Measured wall temperatures and fitting curves in steady flow.
Fig. 5. Dependence of overall thermal resistance on mass flow rate in
steady flow.
capability. The length of the aftercooler was set to be constant at 20 mm
based on the common design approach for oscillatory flow.
3. Steady flow experiment (Evaluation of Heat-Transfer
Performance)
3.1. Experimental setup and conditions
First, the heat transfer performance of each aftercooler was experi­
mentally evaluated in a steady flow. Fig. 2 shows a schematic diagram of
the experimental setup, which was designed to be used as a PTC. The
bottom diagram shows the aftercooler and the schematic positions
where the outer-casing wall temperature, working gas temperature, and
based on the overall thermal resistance between the working gas and the
outer-casing wall. The heat transfer through the aftercooler has three
consecutive paths: heat transfer between the working gas and the
aftercooler main body, heat conduction through the body, and heat
conduction from the body to the outer casing through thermal contact
resistance. The overall thermal resistance through these three paths is an
indicator of the heat transfer characteristics of the aftercooler. To
evaluate the overall thermal resistance, we must know the temperature
difference between the working gas and the outer casing, and the
amount of heat transferred from the gas to the outer casing. It was
experimentally found that the temperature in the aftercooler depends on
the position x, the origin of which was set at the entrance (upstream) of
the aftercooler and the direction of which was the same as the flow di­
rection. To evaluate the mean value of the temperature, we defined the
representative temperature T i :
∫
1 La
Ti = Θi (x)dx (1)
La 0
where the subscript i is g or w, and represents the mean temperature of
the gas or the outer-casing wall, respectively; Θi (x) is a fitting function
for the measured temperatures; and La is the aftercooler length. The
measured temperatures and the fitting curves are shown in Figs. 3 and 4.
To estimate the amount of heat transferred Q, we used the measured
mass flow rate ṁ, the mean pressure pm , the gas temperature drop ΔTg
across the main bodies, and the heat capacity of helium Cp as a function
of pressure and temperature. Q is obtained as follows:
( )
Q = ṁ Cp pm , T g ΔTg (2)
The overall thermal resistance Rt is evaluated from the temperature
difference and the amount of heat transferred as follows:
Rt =
Tg − Tw
(3)
Q

3
Y. Yasukawa et al. Cryogenics 121 (2022) 103408

10
9 Copper Mesh

Visous Loss in Aftercooler [W]

Multi-hole
8
Tube Bundle
7
6 Pressure: 2.1 MPa
Frequency: 50 Hz
5
4
3
2
1
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Acoustic Power W2 [W]

Fig. 8. Viscous loss in aftercooler.

160

150 Copper Mesh

Multi-hole
Tube Bundle

No-load Temperature [K]

140
Fig. 6. Cross-sectional view of experimental setup for oscillatory flow.
130 Pressure: 2.1MPa
Frequency: 50Hz
Table 3 120
Dimensions of pulse tube cryocooler
110
Regenerator Pulse tube Cold HEX Warm HEX

Outer diameter 17.6 mm 13.6 mm – –

100
Inner diameter 17.2 mm 13.2 mm 15.0 mm 15.0 mm
90
Length 80 mm 80 mm 5.0 mm 5.0 mm
Mesh #400 – #100 #100
80
Porosity 0.697 – 0.629 0.629
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Acoustic Power W3 [W]
Table 4
Fig. 9. Cooling performance based on acoustic power W3 (at location 3).
Estimation method for each location
Location 1 2 3

Pressure (P) E M M
Volume flow rate (U) M E E
Acoustic power (W) E E E

(M: Measured, E: Estimated by DeltaEC).

160

150 Copper Mesh

Multi-hole
No-load Temperature [K]

140 Tube Bundle

130 Pressure: 2.1MPa

Frequency: 50Hz
120

110

100
Fig. 10. Gas temperature profile for aftercooler in oscillatory flow.
90
values of Rt can be understood from the size of the thermal contact
80
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 surface area for the three bodies; the CM, TB, and MH bodies have the
largest, middle, and lowest contact surface areas, respectively. Thus, the
Acoustic Power W2 [W]
aftercooler with the CM body exhibits the best performance in terms of
thermal resistance.
Fig. 7. Cooling performance based on acoustic power W2 (at location 2).
As shown in Fig. 3, the heat exchange in the CM and MH aftercoolers
seemed to be completed within a length of 5 mm because the gas tem­
where the value of Rt is shown by the symbols in Fig. 5. This figure shows perature dropped to about the wall temperature at x = 5 mm, whereas
that Rt with the CM aftercooler had the lowest value. The MH aftercooler the heat exchange in the TB aftercooler was complete within a length of
realized the second-lowest thermal resistance. The order of the obtained 20 mm. Hence, the design lengths based on this steady flow experiment

4
Y. Yasukawa et al. Cryogenics 121 (2022) 103408

Table 5 4. Oscillatory flow experiment (Evaluation of cooling

Flow channel radius and specific contact surface area. Performance)
Type of aftercooler Copper Multi-hole Tube bundle Regenerator
mesh 4.1. Experimental setup and conditions
Geometric Mesh Circular Circular Mesh
configuration multi-hole multi-hole Next, an experiment was conducted to evaluate the performance of
r0 [mm] 0.072 0.5 0.65 0.0174 the aftercoolers by installing them in a PTC. The experimental setup is
r0/δα [–] 0.302 2.110 2.740 0.074 shown in Fig. 6. A dual-piston-type compressor with moving coils,
Specific contact 13.5 2.02 2.47 53.0
surface area
manufactured in-house, was used. The phase shifter, which consists of
[mm2/mm3] an inertance tube and a reservoir, was installed at the right end of the
pulse tube (not shown in the figure). The main parameters for the
components are listed in Table 3. The sensors used in the experiments
measured pressure, temperature, and piston position. The pressure and
0.5
temperature sensors were the same as those used in the steady flow
experiment. A semiconductor transducer (PMS-5M-2, JTEKT, Japan)
was used to measure the oscillatory pressure, and a linear variable dif­
ferential transformer (custom-made; Shinko Electric, Japan) was used to
Re ( U [ * 1E-4 m3/s], P [*1E5 Pa]) measure the piston position. The time-averaged temperature of the cold
Im ( U [ * 1E-4 m3/s], P [*1E5 Pa])

0
head was measured with a PT100 platinum resistor. The experimental
0 0.5 1 1.5 2
conditions were as follows: helium gas with an average pressure of 2.1
U1 (Exp) MPa was injected into the setup, the operating frequency was set to 50
U2 (Cal) Hz, the ambient temperature was 25 ◦ C, and the aftercooler was cooled
U3 (Cal)
P1 (Cal) by water at 18 ◦ C.
-0.5
P2 (Exp) Measurement of the acoustic power (PV work) is important for un­
P3 (Exp) derstanding the performance of a PTC. The acoustic power can be
expressed as
∮
1
W = f PUdt = |P||U|cosϕ (4)
-1 2

where f is the operating frequency, P is the oscillatory pressure, U is the

-1.5
Fig. A1. Pressure and volume flow in complex plane.
were 5 mm for the CM and MH aftercoolers and 20 mm for the TB
aftercooler. However, we set the length of all aftercoolers to be 20 mm
for the oscillatory flow experiments described in the next section for two
reasons. One was that we wanted to make the gas temperature in the
oscillatory flow experiments match the cooling water temperature as
closely as possible. In the steady flow experiment, we could not realize a
flow rate of more than 0.16 g/s and hence, to satisfy the required heat
amount (> 60 W), the inlet gas temperature was set to 50 – 65 ◦ C. In
other words, if the inlet temperature was set to be close to the cooling
water temperature and the flow rate was increased to satisfy the
required heat amount, the required length of the CM and MH after­
coolers would be longer than 5 mm. The second reason was that a pre­
liminary study of oscillatory flow showed that the displacement
amplitude of the working gas in the aftercoolers was about 20 mm.
volumetric flow rate, and ϕ is the phase difference between P and U. It is
necessary to measure the pressure and the flow rate (flow velocity)
simultaneously at the same location to obtain the acoustic power W.
However, it is not easy to measure these values while maintaining the
actual shape of the PTC. Therefore, we decided to measure the pressure
and the flow rate at various locations and estimate these values using
software and the measured values. The estimation is described in Section
4.2. The measured values are P2, P3, P4, and U1 in Fig. 6, whereas the
estimated values are P1, U2, and U3. Here, the subscript indicates the
location. The flow rate U1 was obtained by measuring the piston position
and taking its time derivative. Because the compressor has a clearance
seal configuration and the amount of leakage from the piston is less than
0.05% in the calculation, U1 obtained upon time differentiation of the
piston position can be regarded as the measured value.
4.2. Estimation of pressure and flow rate
The unmeasured P1, U2, and U3 were computationally estimated
using DeltaEC [19], which is a computational analysis program based on
thermoacoustic theory. This program is publicly available from Los
Alamos National Laboratory in the United States. The calculation

Table A1
Measured and estimated values of P3.
Amplitude [mm] |P3| [MPa] ϕP3 [deg] W3 [W]

Measured Estimated Δ Measured Estimated Δ with Measured P3 With Estimated P3 Δ

Copper Mesh 4 0.1071 0.1144 6.8% − 60.19 − 59.39 − 1.3% 14.88 16.18 8.8%
5.2 0.1315 0.1400 6.4% − 53.82 − 52.92 − 1.7% 28.24 30.54 8.2%
7 0.1647 0.1753 6.4% − 48.02 − 47.27 − 1.6% 53.36 57.40 7.6%
Multi-hole 4 0.1104 0.1166 5.7% − 60.18 − 59.54 − 1.1% 14.70 15.79 7.4%
5.2 0.1380 0.1466 6.3% − 54.37 − 53.84 − 1.0% 28.27 30.37 7.4%
7 0.1747 0.1855 6.2% − 46.87 − 45.99 − 1.9% 55.95 60.22 7.6%
Tube Bundle 4 0.1114 0.1151 3.3% − 60.57 − 60.59 0.0% 15.17 15.66 3.2%
5.2 0.1361 0.1407 3.3% − 53.46 − 53.48 0.0% 28.66 29.61 3.3%
7 0.1748 0.1806 3.3% − 48.85 − 48.88 0.1% 54.45 56.22 3.3%

5
Y. Yasukawa et al. Cryogenics 121 (2022) 103408

0.6 P3, and U3 are calculated. Table 4 summarizes whether the pressure and
flow rate at each location are measured or estimated. Because P3 is
0.4 Copper Mesh (CM)
obtained both experimentally and numerically, the accuracy of the
0.2 computational estimation can be verified by comparing the experi­
Re mental values with the calculated values for P3. This verification is
0 described in the Appendix A and indicates quantitative agreement be­
Im

0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2 tween the experimentally and numerically obtained values.
-0.2 U3, 4mm (Cal)
U3, 5.2mm (Cal)
-0.4 U3, 7mm (Cal) 4.3. Results of oscillatory flow experiment
P3, 4mm (Exp)
-0.6 P3, 4mm (Cal) The effect of the aftercooler on the performance of the PTC was
P3, 5.2mm (Exp) investigated through the no-load cold-head temperature. In the experi­
-0.8
P3, 5.2mm (Cal) ment, the displacement amplitudes for the compressor pistons were set
P3, 7mm (Exp) to 4, 5.2, and 7 mm, which correspond to acoustic power inputs of
-1
P3, 7mm (Cal)
approximately 15, 30, and 60 W, respectively.
-1.2 The relationship between the no-load cold-head temperature of the
-1.4 PTC and the acoustic power W2 at location 2 is shown in Fig. 7. The
effect of the difference in the aftercoolers on the performance is clearly
0.6 shown; the lowest temperature was obtained with the TB aftercooler,
while the highest temperature was obtained with the CM aftercooler.
0.4 Multi-hole (MH) Based on these results, we can say that the TB aftercooler is the best for a
PTC, while the CM aftercooler is the worst. This is different from the
0.2
conclusion obtained from the steady-flow experiments described in
Re Section 3.
0
Im

0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2

-0.2 U3, 4mm (Cal) 4.4. Discussion of results of oscillatory flow experiments
U3, 5.2mm (Cal)
-0.4 U3, 7mm (Cal)
P3, 4mm (Exp) To analyze the effects of the viscous loss in the aftercoolers and the
-0.6 P3, 4mm (Cal) thermal characteristics of the aftercoolers, we estimated the acoustic
P3, 5.2mm (Exp) power loss in the aftercoolers. The motivation for this is that we want to
-0.8 P3, 5.2mm (Cal) know the reason why the cooling performance with the CM aftercooler
P3, 7mm (Exp)
-1 P3, 7mm (Cal)
having the lowest (best) thermal resistance is the worst (see Fig. 3). The
acoustic power loss, Wloss , can be calculated from the difference in
-1.2 acoustic power as follows:

-1.4 Wloss = W2 − W3 (5)

The estimated viscous loss in the aftercooler is shown in Fig. 8. The
0.6
horizontal axis indicates the acoustic power at location 2. The results
0.4 Tube Bundle (TB) indicate that the viscous loss in the CM aftercooler is the highest and that
in the TB aftercooler is the lowest. At the point where the piston
0.2 amplitude is 7 mm, that is, where the acoustic power was the highest,
Re the aftercooler losses account for 13.7% of the acoustic power in the CM
0
Im

0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2 aftercooler, 9.1% in the MH aftercooler, and 4.3% in the TB aftercooler.
-0.2 U3, 4mm (Cal) In terms of viscous loss, the TB aftercooler is the best aftercooler for the
U3, 5.2m (Cal) PTC. The question arises as to whether the PTC has the same perfor­
-0.4 U3, 7mm (Cal) mance when the viscous loss of the aftercooler is excluded.
P3, 4mm (Exp)
-0.6 P3, 4mm (Cal) In Fig. 9, the no-load cold-head temperature is shown as a function of
P3, 5.2mm (Exp) W3 . The values of W3 are represented as error bars, which were calcu­
-0.8 P3, 5.2mm (Cal) lated based on the difference between the measured and estimated P3
P3, 7mm (Exp)
P3, 7mm (Cal)
(refer to the Appendix A). This figure indicates that the cooling perfor­
-1
mance with the MH aftercooler is approximately the same as that with
-1.2 the TB aftercooler. However, the no-load cold-head temperature with
the CM aftercooler is still the highest for each W3 , and is more than 7 K
-1.4 higher than that with the other two aftercoolers. This indicates that the
worst cooling performance for the CM aftercooler should “not” be
Fig. A2. Verification of calculation accuracy for measured values of P3.
attributed to viscous loss.
To determine the thermal characteristic of the aftercoolers under
faithfully models the geometry of the transfer duct from the compressor
oscillatory flow conditions, the working gas temperature and the outer-
outlet to the aftercooler, the shapes of the front and rear of the after­
casing wall temperature along the aftercooler were measured, and the
cooler, and the abruptly expanding and shrinking cross-sectional areas.
results are shown in Fig. 10. The data in this figure were obtained when
The calculation model for the CM aftercooler is the same as a regener­
the piston displacement amplitude was 7 mm and the no-load cold-head
ator without a temperature gradient [20]. The MH and TB aftercoolers
temperatures were 96.2 K with the CM aftercooler, 89.1 K with the MH
are circular cross-section models, and the equations are similar to the
aftercooler and 89.1 K with the TB aftercooler. The outer-casing wall of
basic model in thermoacoustic theory [21]. The measured U1, that is, the
the aftercooler was cooled by water at 18 ◦ C.
flow rate amplitude |U1| and phase ϕU1 (reference point), and P2, that is,
The dotted lines with open symbols in Fig. 10 show that the tem­
the pressure amplitude |P2| and phase ϕP2 , are input, and then, P1, U2,
perature distributions of the outer-casing wall with the three

6
Y. Yasukawa et al.
aftercoolers can be regarded as approximately constant. In contrast, the
temperature distribution of the working gas shown by the solid line with
closed symbols depends on the type of aftercooler. With the MH and TB
aftercoolers, the gas has approximately constant temperature distribu­
tions, and the average gas temperatures with the MH and TB aftercoolers
are 31.3 and 32.8 ◦ C, respectively. This means that the temperature
difference between the working gas and that of the outer-casing wall is
10.2 K for the MH aftercooler and 11.4 K for the TB aftercooler. In
contrast, the gas with the CM aftercooler has a completely different
temperature distribution than those for the other two aftercoolers. The
gas temperature with the CM aftercooler is 44.2 ◦ C at x = 0 mm, and
there is a sharp temperature gradient. Furthermore, the temperature of
some of the gas inside the CM aftercooler is lower than that of the outer-
casing wall. (See the data shown at x = 11.5 and 23 mm in Fig. 10.) This
implies that heat is transported “from” the CM aftercooler body “to” the
working gas, and that a part of the CM aftercooler does not work as a
heat exchanger removing heat from the experimental setup to the
surroundings.
Table 5 lists the specific thermal contact surface areas in the three
aftercoolers. As is clearly shown, the CM aftercooler has about a five
times larger contact surface area than the other two aftercoolers, and
hence the thermal contact surface area in the CM aftercooler is suffi­
ciently large. Furthermore, Fig. 10 implies that the very small temper­
ature difference between the working gas and the CM aftercooler body
at x = 11.5 mm and 23 mm is still the smallest. This indicates good
thermal contact between the body and the outer casing. Hence, the
anomalous gas temperature distribution for the CM aftercooler cannot
be attributed to error in assembling it.
Why does the CM aftercooler not work well as a heat exchanger? We
focus on the values of r0 /δα in the aftercoolers and in the regenerator.
Here r0 is the flow channel radius which was defined in Section 1, while
δα is the thermal boundary layer thickness which is defined as δα =
√̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅
2λ/(ωρCp ) (where λ is the thermal conductivity of gas, ω is the angular
frequency, and ρ is the density of gas). This is because r0 /δα is an
important quantity when gas is oscillated. When r0 /δα is sufficiently
small, the thermo-fluid behavior between the gas and the wall is
isothermally reversible, which means that heat transfer between them
occurs without a time delay. This is a typical example of thermo-fluid
behavior in a regenerator. In contrast, when r0 /δα is sufficiently large,
the thermo-fluid behavior is adiabatically reversible, and no heat
transfer occurs between the gas and the wall, which is typical for a wide
tube. At intermediate values of r0 /δα , heat transfer between the gas and
the wall occurs with a time delay. The interior of heat exchangers cor­
responds to this case. Table 5 lists the values of r0 /δα in the three
aftercoolers and in the regenerator. The value of r0 /δα in the CM after­
cooler is smaller than unity and is close to the value in the regenerator,
whereas those in the MH and TB aftercoolers are greater than 2. This
means that the thermo-fluid condition in the CM aftercooler is similar to
that in the regenerator. Therefore, we consider that a part of the CM
aftercooler body acts not as a heat exchanger but rather as a regenerator.
As pointed out above, for x > 11.5 mm in the CM aftercooler, the
temperature of the gas is lower than that of the heat exchanger body.
This causes the heat to be absorbed from the outside to the inside of the
aftercooler. As a result, not only the heat from the regenerator but also
the additional heat received from the external environment must be
rejected from the inside to the outside of the experimental setup.
Moreover, only the part of the CM aftercooler located in the region x =
0 – 11.5 mm acts as a heat exchanger. We consider that the additional
heat and the shortening of the effective length of the aftercooler increase
Appendix A
The measured values for pressures P2 and P3 and flow rate U1 (reference point) in the CM aftercooler are shown as solid lines on the complex plane
in Fig. A1. In Table A1, all measured and estimated values are given, including the acoustic power W3 . The calculated values for pressure P1 and flow
7
Cryogenics 121 (2022) 103408
the gas temperature in the region x = 0 – 11.5 mm, resulting in the CM
aftercooler having the worst performance. These results provide hints
for improving the design of an aftercooler. The thermo-fluid condition in
an aftercooler should be different from that in a regenerator, whereas
gas in an aftercooler has a thermal interaction with the aftercooler body.
The thermal contact surface area in an aftercooler is important, but it
cannot be increased by a decrease in a characteristic radius in it.
5. Conclusion
We prepared three aftercoolers, one mesh type aftercooler (CM
aftercooler) with complex flow channels and two multi-hole type
aftercoolers (MH and TB aftercoolers) with uniform flow channels. First,
the heat transfer characteristics of the aftercoolers were evaluated by
steady flow experiments. The results showed that the CM aftercooler had
the highest heat-transfer performance. Next, the aftercoolers were
installed in a PTC, and the cooling performance was measured during
oscillatory flow. The oscillatory pressure and flow rate were measured
and used to evaluate the viscous loss in the aftercooler. In terms of the
cooling performance expressed as the acoustic power after subtracting
the viscous loss in the aftercooler, the performance of the CM aftercooler
was inferior to that of the other aftercoolers. To clarify the reason for
this, the temperature distribution in the aftercoolers was investigated. In
the MH and TB aftercoolers, because the gas temperature distribution
was almost constant and higher than the wall temperature throughout
the aftercooler, the aftercooler acted as a heat exchanger. However, in
the CM aftercooler, the gas temperature distribution had a sharp
gradient and there was a region where the gas temperature was lower
than the wall temperature along the aftercooler. This implies that part of
the CM aftercooler did not function as a heat exchanger. We concluded
that this was caused by the fact that the factor r0 /δα for the CM after­
cooler was lower than unity and close to that for a regenerator.
Based on the experimental results, the following design conditions
for an aftercooler for a PTC should be taken into consideration:
(1) A CM aftercooler with r0 /δα = 0.3 possibly does not function as a
heat exchanger in oscillatory flow. In addition, the viscous loss is
large. When selecting this type of aftercooler, it is necessary to
optimize its length for oscillatory flow conditions.
(2) The MH aftercooler with r0 /δα = 2.1 can function as a heat
exchanger in oscillatory flow and can be fabricated using com­
mon design criteria.
(3) The TB aftercooler with r0 /δα = 2.7 functions as a heat exchanger
and has the lowest viscous loss among the three aftercoolers. It
can be fabricated using common design criteria for oscillatory
flow.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank Mr. Takehide Itoyama (presently at
Chino Corporation) for his cooperation in the design, fabrication, and
discussion of the experimental device.
Y. Yasukawa et al. Cryogenics 121 (2022) 103408

rates U2 and U3 are also shown as broken lines. The results for the MH and TB aftercoolers were approximately the same. Both the phased pressure and
flow rate increased with the distance from the compressor. Both the amplitudes of pressure and flow rate decayed downstream of the aftercooler. We
verified the accuracy of the estimated values for pressures and flow rates by comparing the experimental values with the calculated values for P3. The
measured values on the complex plane are shown in Fig. A2, and the calculated values for U3 are also shown for reference. The solid lines indicate
experimental values, and the broken lines indicate calculated values. The phase relationship between the experimental and calculated values for P3 is
quite good, and the values almost overlap in the figure. There is a slight difference in the pressure amplitude |P|. The differences between the
experimental and calculated values are 6.4 – 6.8% for the CM aftercooler, 5.7 – 6.2% for the MH aftercooler, and 3.3% for the TB aftercooler.
Moreover, all of the experimental values are smaller than the calculated values. There are very slight differences in pressure angle ϕP3 between the
experimental and calculated values. The differences are 1.3 – 1.6% for the CM aftercooler, 1.1 – 1.9% for the MH aftercooler, and less than 0.1% for the
TB aftercooler. The differences are primarily caused by the calculation model for the friction factor in the aftercoolers. The model for the CM
aftercooler is fitted to Kays and London data [22], while that for the MH and TB aftercoolers uses the well-known circular pipe equation. There are
minor losses in the connections between ducts and cones. Although these differences are not negligible, we calculated the acoustic power while
recognizing the existence of this level of difference.

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