Air Liquide opens first public hydrogen filling station in Germany
In September, Air Liquide officially opened its first public hydrogen filling station for passenger cars in Germany, in the city of Düsseldorf.
ADVERTISEMENT
Air Products increases price of liquid and bulk gases in US
Effective October 1, 2012, or as contracts permit, Air Products will increase product pricing and monthly service charges for merchant customers in North America.
SLAC employees witness space shuttle flyover
The space shuttle Endeavour delighted SLAC employees and other northern California crowds on a final flight, atop a customized 747, to its resting place at the California Science Center in Los Angeles, where it will be on display as a museum exhibit.
Airgas to build new ASU in Chicago area
On September 20, Airgas, Inc. announced plans to build a new air separation unit (ASU) in the Chicago area in order to meet increasing demand for merchant gases in the region. The ASU, which will produce oxygen, nitrogen and argon, is expected to begin production in the fall of 2014.
October 7 is target launch date for resupply mission to ISS
NASA and SpaceX have announced October 7, 2012, as the target launch date for SpaceX's first resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The launch of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft is scheduled for 8:34 p.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Norman Augustine to chair Fermilab director search committee
Norman R. Augustine, the retired chairman and chief executive officer of Lockheed Martin Corp., has agreed to chair the search committee for the new Director of Fermilab.
ADVERTISEMENT
Mixed Refrigerant Cycles
Most cryogenic refrigeration systems, both large scale systems and cryocoolers, use helium as a working fluid. There are a number of advantages to helium, not the least of which is that helium remains a fluid down to the lowest achievable temperatures. In order to freeze helium, pressures of over 20...
Fountain Pumps and He II Phase Separators
Helium II (He II), the second liquid phase of the 4He isotope described in this column in Cold Facts Spring 2010 (http://2csa.us/he2), can be modeled as consisting of two interpenetrating fluids. One, the superfluid component, has zero viscosity and entropy and the other, the normal fluid component, has nonzero viscosity...
Turboexpanders
A vital technology in the refrigerators and liquefiers described in Cold Facts Volume 31 Number 3 is that of turboexpanders. These devices are rotating machines in which the process fluid (e.g., helium) does work against the turboexpander while moving from high pressure to a lower pressure and thus is cooled....
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....
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?