Customer specific demands on cryocoolers

At various conferences since 1999, Thales' new generation of Linear Stirling Flexure bearing (LSF) coolers has been presented. It is obvious from those presentations that the Thales moving magnet concept has superior potential for all applications where either long lifetime, extreme reliability, or low cost per hourly rate of use are important. To go from a design with a high potential to a range of fit-to-purpose cryocoolers is not an overnight process. It requires a listening ear for the demands of the customer, engineering skills to adapt details in the design, and a true mastering of the fabrication process to have a high enough production yield. This presentation will focus on typical constraints imposed by applications ranging from laboratory and industrial use to unmanned space missions. The constraints vary between economic and environmental, and the trade off is different for each type of application. Furthermore, focusing on the environmental aspect, the various qualification programs that are performed at Thales' environmental test lab will be discussed. Finally, some technical and organizational aspects will be discussed of the factory engineering that is required to get a stable high-quality volume production, while maintaining the high flexibility that is required to make small series of user-specific cryocoolers.