Investigation of the performance of oil-free linear compressor with magnetic resonance spring for pulse tube cryocooler

This study proposes a new type of oil-free linear compressor with a magnetic resonance spring, which uses a magnetic resonance spring to provide restoring force and adopts gas-lubricated bearings to provide support force for the piston. The frequency characteristics of the compressor, including magnetic spring stiffness, gas spring stiffness, and resonance frequency, are studied through experiments and theoretical analysis. The magnetic spring stiffness is 31403.31 N/m of the design compressor. Hooke’s law and Fourier decomposition are employed for the gas spring stiffness measuring the compression pressure gauged. Meanwhile, the gas spring stiffness is also obtained from the amplitude-frequency characteristic of the compressor by the back stepping technique with an electric parameter frequency scan. The experimental results demonstrate that the three measurement methods have good consistency in measuring the gas spring stiffness. The equivalent gas spring stiffness measured using the three methods and theoretical model are 72600.92 N/m, 71275.84 N/m, 71967.15 N/m, and 71929.25 N/m at 3 MPa charged pressure measured respectively. In addition, the refrigeration performance of the pulse tube cryocooler driven by the compressor is tested and the lowest temperature obtained in the cold end is 46.3 K under different charge pressure. Furthermore, an optimal frequency exists that enhances the refrigeration performance of the pulse tube cryocooler, and this optimal frequency remains constant regardless of changes in the charge pressure.