Miniature Joule-Thomson Cryocooling

This book is the first in English being entirely dedicated to Miniature Joule-Thomson Cryocooling. The category of Joule-Thomson (JT) cryocoolers takes us back to the roots of cryogenics, in 1895, with figures like Linde and Hampson. The "cold finger" of these cryocoolers is compact, lacks moving parts, and sustains a large heat flux extraction at a steady temperature. Potentially, they cool down unbeatably fast. For example, cooling to below 100 K (minus 173 Celsius) might be accomplished within only a few seconds by liquefying argon. A level of about 120 K can be reached almost instantly with krypton. Indeed, the species of coolant plays a central role dictating the size, the intensity and the level of cryocooling. It is the JT effect that drives these cryocoolers and reflects the deviation of the "real" gas from the ideal gas properties. The nine chapters of the book are arranged in five parts.

-The Common Principle of Cyrocoolers shared across the broad variety of cryocooler types
-Theoretical Aspects: the JT effect and its inversion, cooling potential of coolants, the liquefaction process, sizing of heat exchangers, level of pressurization, discharge of pressure vessels
- Practical Aspects: modes of operation (fast cooldown, continuous, multi-staging, hybrid cryocoolers), pressure sources, configuration, construction and technologies, flow adjustment, MEMS, open and closed cycle, cooldown process and similarity, transient behavior
- Mixed Coolant cryocooling: theory, practice and applications
- Special Topics: real gas choked flow rates, gas purity, clog formation, optimal fixed orifice, modeling, cryosurgical devices, warming by the inverse JT effect

The theoretical aspects may be of interest not only to those working with cryocoolers but also for others with a general interest in "real" gas thermodynamics, such as, for example, the inversion of the JTeffect in its differential and integral forms, and the