Qualifying the Sunpower M87N cryocooler for operation in the AMS-02 magnetic field

Shuvo Mustafi, Stuart Banks, Kim Shirey, and Susan Breon

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Cryogenics and Fluids Branch
Code 552
NASA/ Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, MD 20771

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-02 (AMS-02) experiment uses a superfluid helium dewar to cool a large superconducting magnet. The outer vapor-cooled shields of the dewar are to be held at 80 K by four Sunpower M87N cryocoolers. These cryocoolers have magnetic components that might interact with the external applied field generated by the superconducting magnet, thereby degrading the cryocoolers' performance. Engineering models of the Sunpower M87 have been qualified for operation in a magnetic environment similar to the AMS-02 magnetic environment.

Although there was no noticeable performance degradation at field levels that were comparable to AMS-02 field levels, there appears to be a small performance degradation at higher field levels. It was theorized that there were three possible issues related to these performance losses at high magnetic fields: (i) induced piston rubbing on the cylinder wall due to forces and torques on the linear motor due to the applied magnetic fields; (ii) magnetic hysteretic and/or eddy current damping of the balancer due to its motion in the applied magnetic fields; (iii) inductance losses in motor due to the applied magnetic field.

The experiments conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) cyclotron facility in June 2002 were designed to test these. Tests were performed over a range of field levels that were lower, comparable, and higher than the field levels that the cryocoolers will experience in the AMS-02 operating environment. This paper describes the experiments and the inferences derived from them.

Pages 575-580
Cryogenics, Volume 44, Issues 6-8 (June - August 2004)
[2003 Space Cryogenics Workshop, Edited by M. Larson and W. A. Holmes]