A Cryocooler for High Acceleration Applications

The design of the gas handling and gas panel system are finished. Baseline designs for the dewar support mount top plate have been completed. A commercially manufactured Gifford-McMahan (GM) cryocooler owned by ACE, Inc. has been identified for use as a heat sink for the heat exchanger during initial performance tests. This cryocooler would take the place of the liquid nitrogen vessel that was identified in the original proposal. Using the GM cryocooler for preliminary testing would simplify the experiments and improve reliability without adding any additional cost to the program. After preliminary testing is completed a separate unit containing the original cryostat design and the finalized Linde-Hampson cryocooler will be constructed.