Study on a Miniature Mixed-gases Joule-Thomson Cooler Driven by an Oil-lubricated Mini-compressor for 120 K Temperature Ranges

In this paper, a miniature J-T cooler using multicomponent mixtures was developed and tested, in which an oil-lubricated mini-compressor was used. Experimental tests on the performance of the miniature J-T cooler were carried out with two kinds of recuperative heat exchangers. One is a shell-and-tube heat exchanger, and the other is a plate-fin type recuperative heat exchanger with whereas a micro-channel configuration fabricated by the wire-electrode cutting method. The former one gave a no-load minimum temperature of 140 K, while the later one showsbetter performance. No-load minimum temperature of 110 K and about 4 W cooling capacity at 118 K were achieved with the plate-fin micro J-T cooler. Such miniature J-T coolers driven by oil-lubricated mini-compressors show good prospects in many applications.