Flexure bearing cryocoolers at Thales Cryogenics

Thales Cryogenics (NL) and Thales Cryogenie (F), formerly known as Signal Usfa and Cryotechnologies, closely co-operate in the field of production and development of linear and rotary cryocoolers. Over the past years, Thales Cryogenics has developed a complete range of Stirling cryocoolers with flexure bearings. In this paper the main design features of the flexure bearing compressor are explained. With these flexure bearing cryocoolers, which are available in slip-on configuration as well as IDCA (Integrated Detector Cooler Assembly), up to 6 W @80 K cooling power can be obtained. Also a pulse tube cryocooler with a specified cooling power of 500 mW @80 K has been developed. Two specific production machines have been developed and introduced in the production line. With this equipment Thales Cryogenics has been able to further improve the quality and reproducibility of its coolers. Up to now, several flexure bearing cryocoolers have been built and integrated in various new commercial and military applications requiring long life cryocoolers. Besides this, Thales Cryogenics is active in several space applications in co-operation with Air Liquide/DTA.