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LHC Restarted, Researchers Eye 2,700 Bunches per Beam

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) resumed operations on March 25 when CERN researchers opened its doors to allow particles to travel around the ring for the first time since the year-end technical stop (YETS) began in December 2015. Several updates and interventions took place in LHC accelerators and beamlines during...

LCLS-II Upgrade Will Boost Power of World’s Brightest X-ray Laser

Construction is underway on a major upgrade to LCLS (Linac Coherent Light Source), a unique X-ray laser at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The project, known as LCLS-II, will add a second X-ray laser beam that’s 10,000 times brighter, on average, than the first one and fires...

Nexans’ Superconducting Fault Current Limiters Installed in Birmingham Power Grid

Western Power Distribution has integrated two 12 kV superconducting fault current limiters (sFCL) from Nexans Deutschland GmbH (CSA CSM) into the Birmingham UK power grid. The installation is part of FlexDGrid, a £17M project that aims to both reduce power cuts and carbon emissions and to increase the capacity of...

NASA Completes JWST Cryogenic Testing

NASA researchers have completed cryogenic testing on the science instruments module for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The module contains JWST's science cameras and spectrographs, and had been undergoing four months of monitoring inside a giant thermal vacuum chamber called the Space Environment Simulator (SES) at NASA's Goddard Space...

NASA Scientists Prepare Cold Atom Laboratory for ISS Mission

On a sun-drenched hill in Southern California's San Gabriel Mountains, researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena are making progress on an experimental facility that could create the coldest known place in the universe. It's called the Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL) and is expected to probe the wonders of...

FabLab, a STEM Show for Teen Girls, Launches on FOX

FabLab, a new science television series from the producers of the Teen Choice Awards, has launched on FOX. The show aims to enthuse tween and teen girls about STEM by drawing connections between STEM innovations and efforts to make the world a better place. FabLab is produced in partnership with...

Latest in Defining Cryogenics

Refrigerators and Liquefiers

Two of the most common terms used in cryogenics are “refrigerator” and “liquefier.” These terms describe similar and, as will be seen, in some cases identical components. A refrigerator provides cooling (that is, absorbs heat) at cryogenic temperatures. Refrigerators typically put a working fluid (such as helium) through one of...

Air Separation

Air separation is one of the largest, as well as earliest, industrial applications of cryogenics. In this process, cryogenic temperatures are used to separate air into its constituent gases: nitrogen (78.08%), oxygen (20.95%), argon (0.93%) and carbon dioxide (0.3%). Trace gases such as krypton, neon, xenon and helium total far...

Coefficient of Performance and Figure of Merit

The coefficient of performance (COP) is used to describe the effectiveness of refrigerators, including those operating at cryogenic temperatures. The COP is defined as the amount of heat removed at the cryogenic operating temperature of the refrigerator divided by the amount of work that must be applied to remove the...

Latest in Cryo Central

Cryogenic Electronics

Randall Kirschman, consulting physicist, Mountain View, California ExtElect@gmail.com Cryogenic electronics—the operation of electronic devices, circuits, and systems at cryogenic temperatures—has been a valuable technology for decades. Cryogenic electronics (also referred to as low-temperature electronics, or cold electronics) can be based on semiconductive devices, on superconductive devices, or on a combination...

Particle Physics: High Energy Physics

Cryogenics and High-Energy Physics 1. From symmetry magazine: http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/cms/?pid=1000627: Cryogenics is the study of how materials behave at temperatures near absolute zero. In high-energy particle accelerators, such frigid temperatures reduce the electrical resistance of wires in superconducting magnets, increasing the magnet strength and allowing faster particle acceleration. The same holds...

HTS Degaussing Systems

From the Spring 2009 issue of Cold Facts (Volume 25, Number 2): Thanks to a joint project by the US Navy and a number of industry partners, high temperature superconducting (HTS) technology is now at the heart of an advanced degaussing system aboard the USS Higgins at the naval station...

Magnetic Resonance Imaging

From http://www.superconductors.org: An area where superconductors can perform a life-saving function is in the field of biomagnetism. Doctors need a non-invasive means of determining what’s going on inside the human body. By impinging a strong superconductor-derived magnetic field into the body, hydrogen atoms that exist in the body’s water and...

Latest in Ask the Experts

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...

Separated layers of ice over a pipe

I want to know that why there are different layers of ice over a pipe carrying a cryogenic fluid, each layer separated with clear marks / lines? What do these layers signify?

Using nitrogen as a cryogen

Is it possible to achieve -200˚C using nitrogen as a cryogen?

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