Cold Facts Digital – The go-to place for Cryogenics and Superconductivity

MicroBooNE detects accelerator-born neutrinos

The MicroBooNE collaboration announced on November 2 that its researchers had recorded neutrinos for the first time. The sighting marks the beginning of detailed studies of these fundamental particles whose properties could be linked to dark matter, matter’s dominance over antimatter in the universe and the evolution of the entire...

Layered Thermal Insulation Systems for Below-Ambient Temperature Applications

With increasing system control and reliability requirements as well as demands for higher energy efficiencies, thermal insulation in extreme environments is a growing challenge prompting the publication of new technical consensus standards for cryogenic insulation testing and multilayer insulation (MLI) systems. Different layered thermal insulation systems such as MLI and...

Understanding Multilayer Insulation for Large Spacecraft Cryogenics and Upper Stages

The current exploration plan for NASA includes towing an asteroid into lunar orbit and having astronauts visit it to gain experience with new technologies and methodologies for human exploration of the solar system. While this mission does not need the super high thermal performing insulation of a Martian mission, it...

Cryogenic Safety for Space Launch Vehicles During Ground Operations

United Launch Alliance launches Atlas V from Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg Air Force launch facilities, and large quantities of cryogenic propellants are stored on-site. These propellants present leak, fire and explosion hazards throughout their handling, starting from the commercial transport trailers' arrival at the launch pad and continuing through storage...

Cryogenic Safety: An Introduction

The scope of cryogenics is vast, but in all its forms, cryogenics presents unique safety hazards, including issues associated with extreme cold, flammability, enhanced combustion due to the presence of liquid oxygen and oxygen displacement caused by gases boiling off from cryogenic liquids. Despite these hazards, if certain guidelines and...

Researchers characterize electron density wave in cuprates

A team led by researchers from the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and Cornell University has characterized a key arrangement of electrons in a high temperature superconductor. The study, published in the October 26, 2015, online edition of Nature Physics, is the first to identify the atomic-scale origins...

Latest in Defining Cryogenics

Joule-Thomson Effect

The Joule-Thomson (JT) effect is a thermodynamic process that occurs when a fluid expands from high pressure to low pressure at constant enthalpy (an isenthalpic process). Such a process can be approximated in the real world by expanding a fluid from high pressure to low pressure across a valve. Under...

Current Leads

One of the challenges of using superconducting magnets is the connection of the magnet to a room temperature power supply. This is accomplished via current leads. The trick is that current leads should ideally have a low heat leak, since they connect room temperature to cryogenic temperature, while at the...

Multilayer Insulation

Multilayer insulation (also referred to as superinsulation) is a key component in the reduction of heat leak to cryogenic systems due to thermal radiation. MLI consists of a series of uncooled reflective surfaces placed in the vacuum space between two surfaces, one warmer than the other. Generally speaking, for ideal...

Latest in Cryo Central

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...

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?

CATEGORIES