Cold Facts Digital – The go-to place for Cryogenics and Superconductivity

ASC 2020 Is Ongoing

The organizers of the 2020 Applied Superconductivity Conference are presenting a completely virtual conference through November 7, 2020. The two-week format aims to accommodate international attendance and make viewing presentations convenient and easy to experience. https://ascinc.org/registration/

International Cryocooler Conference to Be Virtual-Only

Given the continuing COVID-19 pandemic with restrictions on travel and group meetings, the organizers of the International Cryocooler Conference (ICC) have moved the meeting date to December 7-10, 2020, as a totally virtual conference with no on-site attendance using Zoom® as the primary media. https://cryocooler.org

ITER Prepares Thermal Shield: The Ultimate Heat Barrier

In ITER's French Assembly Hall environment, a strange component shines like a freshly polished mirror. Lying horizontal, it looks like a giant's tiara; when upended to the vertical position and paired to its missing half, it will fit between the vacuum vessel and magnetic system of the machine and act...

#BlackinPhysics Week Builds Community, Increases Visibility

Walking to his lab one afternoon last year, physicist Charles Brown found his way blocked by a white student who refused to let him into the physics building and demanded to see his ID. A postdoc at the University of California, Berkeley, studying ultracold atoms, Brown says the incident reflects...

RIX Cryocooler Tested, Accepted by US Navy for Aircraft Carrier Use

RIX Industries (CSA CSM) announced in August that it had supplied mission-critical cryocooler technology for shipboard pilot and medical applications onboard the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78). The company designs and manufactured a state-of-the-art liquid and gaseous oxygen generating plant that is now used onboard the ship.

Berkeley Lab Scientists Contribute to New Exploration of Higgs Boson Interactions

Since the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 based on data from the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, scientists have been gathering new data on the Higgs particle and its associated Higgs field to understand how—and whether—it interacts with specific types of other particles. Released...

Latest in Defining Cryogenics

Dewar

A dewar is a type of cryostat named after Sir James Dewar, the researcher who first developed the concept of a vacuum insulated container with silvered walls to reflect thermal radiation. Dewar was the first to liquefy hydrogen, and he created the device to store his discovery. The thermos bottle...

Stirling and Gifford-McMahon Cryocoolers

Stirling and Gifford-McMahon (GM) cryocoolers are two of the most commonly used cryocoolers in cryogenics. Both devices have a significant industrial base and operate at a wide range of temperatures and capacities. The thermodynamic cycles for both of these cryocoolers are quite similar. The Stirling cycle consists of a compressor,...

Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG)

A significant commercial application of cryogenics is the liquefaction, transport and storage of natural gas. Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is generally 95 percent methane with a few percent ethane and much lower concentrations of propane and butane. LNG liquefies at 111.6 K. Unlike many applications of cryogenics, the motivation for...

Latest in Cryo Central

Wind Tunnels

Dr. Robert Kilgore The development of the cryogenic wind tunnel is one of many significant breakthroughs in both cryogenics and wind-tunnel technology made during the past millennium. Interest in the development of high-speed commercial and military aircraft resulted in a review of problems of flow simulation in transonic wind tunnels...

History of Cryogenics

From the Fall 1999 issue of Cold Facts magazine Millennium Breakthroughs A variety of CSA members give different perspectives on the past millennium: What were the most significant breakthroughs in cryogenics during the past millennium? Prof. R.G. Scurlock, Kryos Technology, scurlock@soton.ac.uk (“Breakthrough” = way through obstacles — Oxford English Dictionary)...

Cryobiology

Andreas Sputtek Past President Society for Cryobiology sputtek@uke.uni-hamburg.de or http://www.sputtek.de/. The word cryobiology (from the Greek words “cryo” = cold, “bios” = life, and “logos” = science) literally signifies the science of life at low temperatures. In practice, this field comprises the study of any biological material or system (e.g.,...

Cryogenic Insulation

James E. Fesmire Cryogenics Test Laboratory NASA Kennedy Space Center james.e.fesmire@nasa.gov Introduction In today’s world, the use of cryogenics and low-temperature refrigeration is taking a more and more significant role. From the food industry, transportation, energy, and medical applications to the Space Shuttle, cryogenic liquids must be stored, handled, and...

Latest in Ask the Experts