Thermodynamic analysis of reverse brayton cycle based cryocoolers for cooling HTS cables

Abstract

Cryocoolers based on reverse Brayton cycle (RBC) and its derivatives are considered for High Temperature Superconducting (HTS) cables. In this work, thermodynamic analysis has been performed for the configurations based on reverse Brayton cycle for different heat loads from HTS cables that have been reported in open literature. The derived RBCs have expanders in series and parallel arrangements to reduce the exergy destruction in the components of the thermodynamic cycle thereby enhancing the thermodynamic efficiency. Investigation has been done on the optimized cycles using helium as working fluid. The irreversibilities due to entropy generation in each component of every cycle is examined to find the opportunities for further improvements. The performance of the most suitable configuration of RBC for each load case is compared with that of the existing cryocoolers. The results of the analysis may be useful for finding out the suitable thermodynamic configuration of RBCs along with the component sizes for different load scenarios generating from HTS cables.