Recooling cycle (RCC) has been newly proposed as a new cooling method to increase fuel heat sink (cooling capacity). A testing system is established and an experimental study is conducted on the operating characteristics and performance of RCC with different flow, heat transfer and cracking conditions. Experimental results indicate that the utilization of fuel heat sink is restricted by the allowable material temperature of heated tube; RCC provides another chance for the continued use of fuel chemical heat sink and the repeated use of fuel physical heat sink in the secondary cooling by reducing the fuel temperature by doing work to turbine, and the total heat sink of fuel can be increased to 0.7 MJ/kg when n-Decane is used as the fuel. RCC can also improve the "olefin/paraffin ratio" of cracking reaction, which facilitates the improvement of the combustion performance of fuel. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.