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DOE announces new accelerator stewardship funding opportunities

The US Department of Energy made available an estimated $4 million in grants on October 13 with a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) for research opportunities associated with its Accelerator R&D Stewardship Program. Research funded under this FOA could lead to advances is High Energy Physics (HEP), but the grants are...

2015 Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to neutrino oscillation experimenters

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on October 6 awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics to Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. McDonald in recognition of key contributions each made to experiments demonstrating neutrino oscillations. Physicists struggled for decades prior to Kajita's and McDonald's experiments to explain why up to...

CONCOA opens new facility in Taiwan

CONCOA has opened its second marketing facility and product support center in the Pacific region, an area the firm sees as strategic for investment and trade. Located in the greater Taipei area, the new facility supports business partners in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Macao, South Korea and Taiwan.

ITER superconductor production nears completion

The single largest superconductor procurement in industrial history is drawing to a successful close. An eight-year campaign to produce the superconductors for ITER's powerful magnet systems is in its final stages, with nearly 70 percent of the conductor units lengths accepted by the ITER Organization.

Fermilab powers up electromagnet dormant for a decade

Fermilab announced September 23 that scientists there have successfully brought a fragile, expensive and complex 17-ton electromagnet back to life, cooling it down to -450°F and then powering it up. The ring is the centerpiece of an experiment to probe the mysteries of the universe with subatomic particles called muons....

Magnolia LNG awards $40 million for liquefaction equipment

Magnolia LNG, a subsidiary company of Liquefied Natural Gas Limited, announced on September 22 that it had awarded $40 million in contracts to Chart Industries, Inc., for a mid-scale LNG project at Lake Charles LA. Chart will initially deliver two identical trains, each with a nominal LNG production capacity of...

Latest in Defining Cryogenics

Helium-3

Helium-3 (3He) is one of the two stable isotopes of helium. The other is the much more common Helium-4 (4He). Neither of these isotopes should be confused with He II, which is the second liquid phase of 4He. He II was discussed in this column in the Spring 2010 edition...

Cryopumping

Cryopumping refers to the use of cryogenic temperatures to produce vacuum in enclosed spaces. More broadly, it can also refer to the removal of gases via cryogenic temperatures from a flow stream or enclosure without necessarily resulting in vacuum pressures. This is an important application of cryogenics and is used...

Thermal Acoustic Oscillations

Thermal Acoustic Oscillations (TAO) are a common event in cryogenic systems that can have significant adverse effects on the performance of the system. TAOs are sustained pressure oscillations that can occur in tubes containing gas, closed at one end (the warm end) that have a very large temperature gradient along...

Latest in Cryo Central

Magnetic Levitation

From http://www.superconductors.org. Magnetic-levitation is an application where superconductors perform extremely well. Transport vehicles such as trains can be made to “float” on strong superconducting magnets, virtually eliminating friction between the train and its tracks. Not only would conventional electromagnets waste much of the electrical energy as heat, they would have...

Superconductivity

From Superpower website. History of Superconductivity Superconductivity was discovered in 1911 by the Dutch physicist, Heike Kammerlingh Onnes when he was able to liquefy helium by cooling it to 4 Kelvin, or -452°F. This enabled him to cool other materials close to absolute zero and investigate their electrical properties. He...

Medical Applications of Cryogenics

Neutron Therapy Cryogenics is at the heart of nuclear accelerators. Accelerators such as Fermilab’s Tevatron make neutron therapy for cancer possible. From Fermilab Today 4/20/09: Fermilab currently offers neutron therapy. But staff at Fermilab designed and built the proton accelerator used by the nation’s first hospital-based treatment center to use...

Nuclear Physics

Al Zeller National Superconducting Cyclotron Lab (NSCL) at Michigan State University zeller@nscl.msu.edu Cryogenics has a long history in nuclear physics. The technology has its origins in the use of cold traps for maintaining a vacuum, which is required to prevent beam loss and for generating high voltages used in acceleration....

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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