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Senate confirms six DOE nominees

From U.S. Department of Energy, May 21, 2009: This week, the Senate confirmed six DOE nominees, including Deputy Secretary Daniel Poneman, Under Secretary for Energy Kristina Johnson, and Under Secretary for Science Steven Koonin.

ONR’s George Stimak named “Top Navy Scientist and Engineer of the Year”

George Stimak, a program officer at the Office of Naval Research, has been named "Top Navy Scientist and Engineer of the Year" for breakthrough research on the first-ever HTS degaussing system for US Navy ships

Spitzer Space Telescope wraps up mission

From The Associated Press, May 18, 2009: Even as one of NASA's "Great Observatories," the Hubble Space Telescope, was being repaired this past week, another such orbiting light bucket was running out of coolant and wrapping up its mission.

Niowave acquires AMAC International

CSA Corporate Sustaining Member Niowave Inc. has announced the recent acquisition of all SRF Technologies and SRF Business from AMAC International of Newport News VA.

Herschel & Planck separate successfully

The European Space Agency reported today that at 15:49 CEST, Herschel and Planck sent their first radio signals to Earth, a sign that their separation was a success.

Officials break ground for the world’s most advanced neutrino experiment

From Fermilab Office of Communication, May 1, 2009: Construction begins this month on a cutting-edge physics laboratory in northern Minnesota, supported by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Latest in Defining Cryogenics

Cold Compressors

A common way to provide cooling below the normal boiling point of helium (4.2K) is to reduce the pressure above the bath of liquid helium, thus also reducing the bath’s equilibrium saturation temperature. For example, to produce a 1.8K bath of liquid helium, the saturation pressure has to be reduced...

Kapitza Conductance

Kapitza conductance refers to the heat transfer between a solid surface and a fluid that covers that surface. Fundamentally, it describes the inherent difficulty in transferring energy from a solid to the fluid covering the solid surface. This phenomenon was first observed by P. L. Kapitza in 1941 while studying...

Thermosyphons

A thermosyphon (or thermosiphon) is a device that transfers heat via natural convection in a fluid. The natural convection is driven by gravity with the colder, denser fluid flowing downhill and the warmer, less dense fluid flowing back up. Thus, thermosyphons connect an object to be cooled with a reservoir...

Latest in Cryo Central

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...

Wind Tunnels

Dr. Robert Kilgore The development of the cryogenic wind tunnel is one of many significant breakthroughs in both cryogenics and wind-tunnel technology made during the past millennium. Interest in the development of high-speed commercial and military aircraft resulted in a review of problems of flow simulation in transonic wind tunnels...

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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