Robust Stirling coolers for sensing in extreme environmental conditions

With the achievements made in the last decade with respect to reliability and cryogenic performance, the use of Stirling and Pulse Tube cryocoolers for new application areas has become viable. Thales Cryogenics has been challenged by its customers to deliver robust and compact solutions for a variety of applications. The test approaches within the Thales Environmental Test Lab – a center of excellence within the Netherlands – have been refined significantly, departing from the classical robustness testing principles, which typically consist of submitting the product to an environment with a compressed energy allocation - shorter time duration and higher PSD levels. An overview is given of recent activities at Thales Cryogenics regarding the development and testing of linear Stirling cryocoolers for extreme environmental conditions. A novel cooler will be presented that has been developed specifically for operation in high ambient temperature conditions. In addition, an overview will be given of ongoing test and development activities regarding coolers for operation under severe mechanical loads. Design aspects, margin philosophy, test plans (including robustness testing) and test results will be presented.