The threat of budget cuts has created quite a buzz in the UK science community, but an announcement made yesterday assured scientists that funds will be frozen at £4.6 billion for the next four years.
The Post-Tribune reported that Fermilab's "Mr. Freeze" gave a cryogenics demonstration to a group of home-schooled students at the South Lake Church of the Nazarene in Crown Point IN.
The National Ignition Facility (NIF) recently completed its first integrated ignition experiment, which marks the beginning of its next phase on the way toward fusion ignition tests.
The US National Academy of Sciences, the US National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine have released an update to the 2005 "Rising Above the Gathering Storm" report.
American Superconductor Corporation has introduced a new brand name for its second generation (2G) high temperature superconducting (HTS) wire: Amperium wire.
A dewar is a type of cryostat named after Sir James Dewar, the researcher who first developed the concept of a vacuum insulated container with silvered walls to reflect thermal radiation. Dewar was the first to liquefy hydrogen, and he created the device to store his discovery. The thermos bottle...
Stirling and Gifford-McMahon (GM) cryocoolers are two of the most commonly used cryocoolers in cryogenics. Both devices have a significant industrial base and operate at a wide range of temperatures and capacities. The thermodynamic cycles for both of these cryocoolers are quite similar. The Stirling cycle consists of a compressor,...
A significant commercial application of cryogenics is the liquefaction, transport and storage of natural gas. Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is generally 95 percent methane with a few percent ethane and much lower concentrations of propane and butane. LNG liquefies at 111.6 K. Unlike many applications of cryogenics, the motivation for...
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...
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 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...
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...
I am constructing a cryogenic generator for the Air Force. It operates at 15,000 rpm for Liquid Hydrogen. I need a rotating shaft seal that will work with liquid to gaseous hydrogen. Where can I source seals for this application?
I am a metallurgical engineer looking for technical papers on the effect of processing metals at liquid helium temperatures. In anyone familiar with any work in this field?
I have a potential client who is looking for quantitative data on mechanical properties, particularly fatigue properties, with and without cryogenic tempering at -300/-320 degrees F for AISI 4340 alloy steel. Can you point me in the right direction?