Northrop Grumman, ATK complete backbone of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope
Northrop Grumman Corporation and teammate ATK have completed manufacturing of the backplane support frame (BSF) for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.
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HYPRES announces commercial availability of new chip fabrication process
HYPRES, Inc., the Digital Superconductor Company™, announced the commercial availability of its newest six-layer planarized chip fabrication process.
Nigel Lockyer of Canada’s TRIUMF lab named Fermilab director
Nigel Lockyer, director of Canada’s TRIUMF laboratory for particle and nuclear physics and a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of British Columbia, has been selected to become the next director of the US Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.
International team at Keck Observatory strengthens Big Bang theory
Using the most powerful telescope on Earth, an international team of scientists has discovered that the moments just after the Big Bang happened more like the theory predicts, eliminating a significant discrepancy that troubled physicists for two decades.
Resistivity switch is window to role of magnetism in iron-based superconductors
Physicists at the US Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory have discovered surprising changes in electrical resistivity in iron-based superconductors. The findings, reported in Nature Communications, offer further evidence that magnetism and superconductivity are closely related in this class of novel superconductors.
Oxford Instruments dilution refrigerator plays role in D-Wave quantum computer
Oxford Instruments’ cryofree™ dilution refrigerator system, Triton®, is an important component in the latest quantum computer to be supplied by D-Wave Systems Inc to the new Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab in the US.
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Regenerators
Regenerators or regenerative heat exchangers are a key component of cryocoolers such as pulse tube cryocoolers (Cold Facts, August 2014). Regenerator performance greatly affects the coefficient of performance of cryocoolers. Improvements in regenerator design and, in particular, regenerator materials have been an important factor in the improvement of the performance...
Pulse Tube Cryocoolers
The development of pulse tube cryocoolers has been a significant topic of research and development over the past 20 or so years. Pulse tube cryocoolers have a number of advantages over other types of cryocoolers and are now available commercially. In order to understand pulse tube cryocoolers, it’s best to...
Thermal Expansion
Thermal expansion refers to the change in size (length or volume) that a material undergoes as its temperature changes. In cryogenic systems this effect can be quite large and must be allowed for in the design. In isotropic materials, which include most engineering materials, the thermal expansion is the same...
Food Processing
Cryogenics and Food The industrial gas industry provides a host of products and services related to food. The various gases have useful and sometimes fascinating applications in food industry. “The food industry is not a homogenous industry. The needs of customers processing hamburger vs. poultry vs. strawberries vs. seafood, for...
Primary Standards
Elie K. Track Hypres, Inc. elie@hypres.com http://www.hypres.com/ Primary standards involve the exact definition and realization of units of measurement for various quantities, time, length, mass, voltage, resistance, current, etc. International agreements based on the latest scientific knowledge define those units, and their realizations vary depending on the unit itself. For...
Shrink Fitting
Robin A. Rhodes Cryogenic Institute of New England, Inc. rrhodes@nitrofreeze.com Shrink fitting, (or “compression fitting” as it is sometimes called), is a method used to insert a pin or bushing into a housing or other assembly requiring an extremely tight tolerance fit. It can be used as an alternative to...
Telecommunications
From the Winter 2004 issue of Cold Facts magazine The recent M-Calc IV — 4th Industry Assessment workshop discussing military and commercial applications for low-cost cryocoolers, held in November in San Diego, highlighted progress being made in cryogenics as applied in telecommunications. The reliability and long lifetime of projects now...
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?