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BCS Reimagines Life Support with Liquid Air

Former music teacher turned NASA propellants and pneumatics mechanic Ed Blalock understands cryogenic gases, and has positioned his new company, BCS Life Support, LLC, to revolutionize first responder and mine safety with cryogenic systems. The key is liquid air. BCS partnered with NASA’s Biomedical Lab and the National Institute for...

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...

Latest in Defining Cryogenics

Stability

Stability refers to the ability of a device employing superconductors to remain in its superconducting state after part of the superconductor transitions back to its normal conducting state due to a disturbance. While the concept can apply to many superconducting devices—transmission lines, generators, motors, etc.—it is most commonly considered in...

Cable-in-Conduit Conductors

Cable-in-Conduit Conductors (CICC) are a common form of superconducting cable used in large-scale applications. There are several varieties of CICCs, but they all consist of many small, stabilized superconducting wires contained within a conduit through which a coolant (typically supercritical He II) flows. Figure 1 shows the cross section of...

Bayonet Coupling

A bayonet coupling is a demountable joint that allows for quick and easy connection and disconnection of cryogenic components, including transfer lines, cryostats, liquefiers and refrigerators. Bayonets provide a number of advantages, chief among them the ability to connect and disconnect the bayonets while components they connect are still at...

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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