Cryogenic Cooling for Myriad Applications—A STAR Is Born!

About this technology

Overview

Cryogenics, the science of generating extremely low temperatures, has wide applicability throughout NASA. In the late 1980s, NASA wanted a compact linear alternator/motor with reduced size and mass, as well as high efficiency, that had unlimited service life for use in a thermally driven power generator for space power applications. Prior development work with free-piston Stirling converters (a Stirling engine integrated with a linear actuator that produces electrical power output) had shown the promise of that technology for high-power space applications. A dual use for terrestrial applications exists for compact Stirling converters for onsite combined heat-and-power units.NASA entered into a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract with Clever Fellows Innovation Consortium, Inc. (CFIC), of Troy, New York, through Glenn Research Center, to develop a lighter, more robust linear alternator based on CFIC's novel STAR architecture. This resulted in a 15-kilowatt prototype alternator for NASA's Space Power Research Engine (SPRE) that reduced overall Stirling converter mass by 21 percent. The work accomplished through this partnership was later extended to a line of linear alternators and motors, used mainly in cryogenic refrigerators that are marketed by Qdrive, formed in 2001 as the cryogenic cooler development and manufacturing arm of CFIC. Qdrive's acoustic Stirling cryocooler line is now the industry's widest capacity range of unitary coolers, with 77 Kelvin capacities from 10 watts to over a kilowatt.