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

Cryopump Systems and Space Telescopes

In the 21st century, NASA and the world have started looking into deep space astrophysics. Acquiring deep space images requires a space telescope with a large optical mirror, such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the Planck telescope, the Herschel telescope, etc. To carry out various space missions at...

Food Freezing Equipment: Quality, Safety and Efficiency

Cold Facts surveyed several companies about their food freezing equipment and the technological advances made in the last few years.

Tributes to Professor Joseph L. Smith, Jr.

We regret to report that Professor Joseph LeConte Smith Jr., the Samuel C. Collins Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, died on May 7 at the age of 83. Following are tributes from his friends and colleagues.

Tributes to Dr. Frederick J. Edeskuty

Dr. Frederick J. Edeskuty, 89, longtime CSA member, Cold Facts columnist and expert on cryogenic safety, passed away on Friday, May 10. The following tributes were sent to CSA by friends and colleagues of Edeskuty.

Cold Facts Tours Field Museum’s Cryo Storage Facility

Cold Facts was privileged to spend a morning with Dr. Shannon Hackett, the Richard and Jill Chaifetz Associate Curator, Head, Bird Division, Zoology Department, at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History. We wanted to learn more about the museum’s cryogenic storage facility and its role in the collections and research...

Report on Third New York State Superconductor Summit

At the hub of New York’s Tech Valley region, business leaders, academia, prominent scientists, engineers and government officials gathered at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) campus in Albany on May 7 for the third New York State Superconductor Technology Summit.

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?

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