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Mixed Refrigerant System Designed to Cool Deep Survey Telescope

When the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) first turns to survey the southern sky from its Chilean mountaintop perch in 2022, at least one group of scientists will be focused more on the telescope’s camera than the stunning images it’s expected to render. Those researchers are currently designing and testing...

Magnesium Diboride Superconducting Magnets Used in MRI

As a result of the growing concern over helium shortage and the need for direct conduction cooling, Hyper Tech’s magnesium diboride (MgB2) superconductors have been making substantial inroads into applications previously dominated by niobium titanium (NbTi). Working with Brookhaven National Laboratory, NASA, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and others...

Maglab Scientists Use NMR in Battle Against Influenza

Scientists at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (Maglab) (CSA CSM) have detailed the mechanism that activates influenza and permits it to reproduce in human cells. The research, published in Structure, shows for the first time how protons move through the virus’s M2 proton channel and portends the development of...

LHC ends 2015 with a cliffhanger

The final Large Hadron Collider results of the year are in. Particles circulated in the LHC at CERN on December 13 for the last time in 2015, and, two days later, the two large general-purpose experiments, ATLAS and CMS, presented their results from LHC Run 2. Both experiments saw an...

QuAIL project announces advances in quantum tunneling achieved on D-Wave 2X

NASA welcomed members of the news media on December 8 to tour its Quantum Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (QuAIL) at Ames Research Center, providing attendees a rare glimpse inside the facility that houses the 1,097-qubit D-Wave 2X quantum computer. Researchers on NASA’s QuAIL team are using the system to investigate areas...

Improved LUX sensitivity helps redefine dark matter search parameters

Scientists working on the Large Underground Xenon (LUX) dark matter experiment are closer to ruling out the possibility of dark matter detections at low-mass ranges. The new findings come after researchers enhanced LUX's ability to look for WIMPS, or weakly interacting massive particles, and thereafter reexamined data collected during LUX's...

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Mixed Refrigerant Cycles

Most cryogenic refrigeration systems, both large scale systems and cryocoolers, use helium as a working fluid. There are a number of advantages to helium, not the least of which is that helium remains a fluid down to the lowest achievable temperatures. In order to freeze helium, pressures of over 20...

Fountain Pumps and He II Phase Separators

Helium II (He II), the second liquid phase of the 4He isotope described in this column in Cold Facts Spring 2010 (http://2csa.us/he2), can be modeled as consisting of two interpenetrating fluids. One, the superfluid component, has zero viscosity and entropy and the other, the normal fluid component, has nonzero viscosity...

Turboexpanders

A vital technology in the refrigerators and liquefiers described in Cold Facts Volume 31 Number 3 is that of turboexpanders. These devices are rotating machines in which the process fluid (e.g., helium) does work against the turboexpander while moving from high pressure to a lower pressure and thus is cooled....

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...

Thermal conductivity of niobium, tantalum, lead, tin

I am interested in the thermal conductivity and other properties of low temperature superconductors. Specifically I am interested in materials like Niobium, Tantalum, Lead and Tin. Would you know of a publication that dealt with thermal properties in general and also gave specific data on these materials?