Theoretical and experimental investigation of two pulse tube cryocoolers driven by a single opposed linear compressor

•Two coaxial pulse tube cryocoolers driven by a single linear compressor have been design, built and tested.•The system not only achieves refrigeration at different positions but also reduces the total mass.•The system could have the refrigeration performance of 1.79 W at 60 K and 1.38 W at 60 K at the same time.

In order to achieve low temperature at different positions, two coaxial pulse tube cryocoolers driven by one linear compressor have been designed, built and tested at Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics (SITP), Chinese Academy of Sciences. The performances of two coupled pulse tube cryocoolers were investigated at different operating frequencies from 50 Hz to 60 Hz and different charging pressures from 2.0 MPa to 3.2 MPa and its reject temperature dependence was observed in the range of 290–320 K by the test bench. Experimental results showed that the performances of the two pulse tube cryocoolers, which were designed identically, were different. After being coupled, the differences of the performance between the two pulse tube cryocoolers were more obvious. These two pulse tube refrigerators could obtain a low-noise cooling capacity of more than 1.79 W at 60 K and 1.38 W at 60 K, respectively.