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60 Years of DESY: From Hamburg Particle Accelerator to Global Research Center

For the past 60 years, fundamental research has been carried out at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg-Bahrenfeld. In those 60 years, DESY has become a world leader in accelerator technology, structure research, particle physics and astroparticle physics. DESY has developed pioneering technologies, which have been used by scientists from...

Jefferson Lab to be Major Partner in Brookhaven Electron Ion Collider Project

The Department of Energy (DOE) announced that it has taken the next step toward the construction of an Electron Ion Collider (EIC) in the United States. DOE announced that the collider will be sited at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton NY. In addition, DOE’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility...

The Pocket-Sized Particle Accelerator

The accelerator-on-a-chip is just a prototype, but its design and fabrication techniques can be scaled up to deliver particle beams accelerated enough to perform cutting-edge experiments that don’t require the power of a massive accelerator. By placing these chips in a series, researchers from SLAC National Laboratory and Stanford University...

QuinStar Completes Contribution to NASA Mission

QuinStar (CSA CSM) has successfully completed a 28-month program with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that developed flight hardware for the NASA-ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission. QuinStar’s deliverables included Ka-band solid-state power amplifiers—an enabling element of the communication payload for the high speed, space-to-earth datalink.

Italian Energy Company Doubles Blend of Hydrogen

Italian energy infrastructure company Snam has doubled the volume of hydrogen it is blending with natural gas in the transmission network of southern Contursi Terme, Salerno, Italy, in a new experiment that would enable the reduction of the region’s carbon dioxide emissions by five million tons.

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Dilution Refrigerators

Dilution refrigerators are a common technique for reaching temperatures below 1K, particularly where continuous cooling at these temperatures is required. Helium exists in two stable isotopes: 4He and 3He. Naturally occurring 3He is extremely rare, constituting less than 1 part per million of helium gas. However, 3He can be manufactured,...

Oxygen Deficiency Hazards

Oxygen Deficiency Hazards (ODH) are a significant safety issue in cryogenic facilities. ODH occurs when inert gases such as nitrogen, helium or argon displace room air and thus lower the percentage of oxygen in the space below that required for human life. OSHA defines an area as oxygen deficient if...

Kelvin Temperature Scale

The Kelvin temperature scale is the principal temperature scale used in cryogenics and science. The kelvin is also one of the seven base units in the Système International d’Unités (SI) and is the unit of thermodynamic temperature. Thermodynamic temperature is a fundamental physical quantity (like mass, length or electrical current)...

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...

An Issue of Pressure and Flow Rate in a Supply Tank

Please help solve this problem: A supply tank requires a vaporizer to generate sufficient pressure to pump stored fluid up into a vehicle or tank. The available head is limited as the tank level falls and it is important to minimize the system pressure drop to maintain the desired flow...

Using MLI on VJ Line Joints or Cryo Storage Tanks

When installing Multi Layer Insulation (MLI) blankets on VJ line joints or cryo storage tanks should they be wrapped and tied down tight or loose? These are usually pre-cut to size. Also should they have an access hole at the point of where the molecular sieve is installed to help...