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US Energy Secretary Brouillette Praises National Labs’ Contributions

US Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette speaks after the groundbreaking of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Grid Storage Launchpad project in Benton Country WA on August 14. The project is of a small group being hosted at PNNL designed to make the country’s energy grid stronger, more flexible and secure. Read...

Could You Make a Snowball of Neutrinos?

Published on July 7 in The New York Times, cartoonist, author, engineer and physicist Randall Munroe, examines the physics of neutrinos while answering what it would take to create a neutrino "snowball." The science of if (and why) in this installment of "What If?" may surprise you.

Cryogenics Makes the European Spallation Source a Hot Property in Neutron Science

Cryogenics is a core enabling technology at the European Spallation Source, a next-generation neutron-science facility under construction in Sweden. In a July 6 Physics World interview, Joe McEntee talks to John G. Weisend II, CSA board chairman and group leader for specialized technical services at ESS, about the secrets of...

Two Construction Projects Reach Major Milestones at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

On July 22, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (CSA CSM) simultaneously achieved two construction milestones: the groundbreaking for its PIP-II cryoplant building and the site dedication of the laboratory’s Integrated Engineering Research Center. The two projects help usher in a new era of science and support cutting-edge research, including the international...

Ball Aerospace Delivers Cryostat for GUSTO

Early this year, Ball Aerospace delivered a cryostat to the University of Arizona for NASA’s Galactic/Extragalactic Ultralong-Duration Balloon Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory (GUSTO)—a long-duration balloon mission that will map out parts of the Milky Way and Large Magellanic Cloud galaxies to determine the life cycle of interstellar gas, witness the formation...

CERN Council Endorses Building Future Circular Collider

The CERN Council announced on June 19 their endorsement of the idea of building the Future Circular Collider—a new, larger circular supercollider. The move is the first step toward building a 100 TeV, 100-kilometer circumference collider around Geneva. As part of the vote, the group also approved the launch of...

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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...

Air Separation and Liquefaction

by Nils Tellier, PE, President, EPSIM Corporation (CSA CSM) nils@epsim.us All illustrations courtesy EPSIM Corporation Background History of Air Separation and Liquefaction This section builds on a rich history of methods to develop deep refrigeration and cryogenic liquefaction during the 19th Century. You are encouraged to read Cryo Central’s History...

Bose-Einstein Condensate

A Bose-Einstein condensate, first proposed in 1925 by Albert Einstein based on work done by Satyendra Nath Bose (the same Bose from whom the term boson is derived), is a super-cold state of matter in which almost all of the individual atoms have “condensed” down to the lowest possible quantum...

Cold Technology for Pest Control

While it does not reach temperatures cold enough to be called cryogenic, carbon dioxide snow is at the heart of a new way of dealing with unwanted pests. It utilizes a quick freezing process that takes advantage of the properties of carbon dioxide snow and has a number of benefits...

Cryogenic Finishing

The following 3 articles discuss the uses and procedures of various type of cryogenic finishing. 1) By Robin A. Rhodes, Cryogenic Institute of New England, Inc. rrhodes@nitrofreeze.com Cryogenic Deflashing is employed to remove undesired residual mold flash that remains on molded parts after they are removed or ejected from the...

Power usage: cryogenic systems vs. regular refrigerators

A recent project highlighted to me that closed cycle cryogenic cooling systems use far more electrical power to reduce temperatures by a few watts than regular refrigerators. I am sure it must be something to do with the extra difficulty of removing the heat from the liquid nitrogen or similar...

Redundancy strategies for mechanical -80C freezers

I was wondering what kind of redundancy strategies are people using for their mechanical -80C freezers? I am aware of the following. Please add if you are doing something different. 1) 1 Backup freezer for every 10 freezers – Empty and maintained at -80C at all times 2) Backup C02...

Method to move components in a cryogenic environment

Does anyone know of a method with which to reliably move components in a cryogenic environment? We are interested in moving detectors in a cryogenically cooled (2K) vacuum chamber, which is contained within a larger cryostat/isolation vacuum with thermal shields. As the desired horizontal or vertical displacement is between 10...