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Introducing Cool Fuel: Fueling Cryogenics for the 21st Century!

There’s no shortage of cool project areas in cryogenics these days: space, quantum computing, fusion energy, clean energy and clean transport, to name a few. These are the fields that aspiring new engineers want to work in when they pass through my office. The irony is that our cool field...

Cryogenic Industrial Gas to Play Major Role in Alternative Clean Energy

While industrial gases and cryogenics have touched nearly every sector and industrial market for decades, the global push towards alternative clean energy technology is pushing cryogenics more rapidly than ever before. As part of this push, Circor (CSA CSM) is setting new standards for a hydrogen energy world. New technologies...

Saving Breaths: The Literal Air Power

When any of Cannon Air Force Base’s aircraft leave the base located just outside Clovis NM, members of the 27th Special Operations Logistics Readiness Squadron (SOLRS) cryogenics team make sure that, should anything go wrong, the pilots and crew can breathe easy… literally. The cryogenics team provides the liquid oxygen...

Quantum Fluctuations Sustain Record Superconductor

Calculations performed by an international team of Materials Physics Center researchers representing Spain, Italy, France, Germany and Japan show that the crystal structure of the record superconducting LaH10 compound is stabilized by atomic quantum fluctuations. This result suggests that superconductivity approaching room temperature may be possible in hydrogen-rich compounds at...

Indian Railways to Inaugurate Hydrogen Powered Train

India Railways is developing a hydrogen powered suburban train and has floated an official expression of interest for industry participation. The move is part of the railway’s efforts at greening its fuel use. Indian Railways has already fitted solar panels on rooftops of diesel electric multiple unit trains of 4.5...

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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...

Magnets

From “Superconductivity: Present and Future Applications” by the Coalition for the Commercial Application of Superconductors. Particle physics uses accelerators to recreate the conditions of the early universe in an attempt to piece together the complex puzzle of how we got to where we are today. These huge machines are used...

Energy Storage

From “Superconductivity: Present and Future Applications” by the Coalition for the Commercial Application of Superconductors. With power lines increasingly congested and prone to instability, strategic injection of brief bursts of real power can play a crucial role in maintaining grid reliability. Small-scale Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage (SMES) systems, based on...

Astronomy

ASTRONOMY IN SPACE by Peter V. Mason, retired,  Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Visiting Associate, California Institute of Technology. Pmason@alumni.caltech.edu In thinking about the reasons to perform astronomy in space, we first consider the effect of the earth’s atmosphere.  On a scale of decreasing energy, gamma rays, cosmic rays, X-rays and...

Cryocoolers

What is a Cryocooler? A mechanism that can extract heat from an object (cooler) and by doing so draw its temperature down below approximately 150 Kelvin (cryo). — (Courtesy Dr. Willy Gully) What is the difference between a Cryocooler and a Cryostat? A cryostat is any device designed to maintain...

Seeking recommendations for commercial sensors

I would like to measure vibrations in small LHe cryostats. Could anybody recommend commercial sensors which would be suitable for the purpose? I am interested in the frequency range between 1Hz and a couple of KHz, with particular attention to the low frequency side.

Estimating cost of carbon steel, pure helium storage tanks

In order to perform an indicative cost assessment of our helium cryogenic plant (still in the design phase), I need an estimation of the cost of carbon steel room temperature pure helium storage tanks. The storage pressure is 20 bar. Can anyone give me suggestions about how to estimate the...

Supplier of pressure sensor that works down to 4.2 K

In an actual experiment we would like to measure the static pressure in a cryostat in the range between one and four bar. Therefore we are looking for some (more or less) cheap pressure sensors that work in liquid helium in the pressure range up to five bar. Unfortunately all...

Looking for reference/textbook suggestions

Can you suggest some reference textbooks for practical thermodynamics applications in cryogenic fields? I need textbooks with cryogenics calculations and examples, dimensioning procedures, second principle applications in cryogenics, heat load calculations, cryogenic pump application, etc. Do such books exist? Does any similar source of information exist?