ADVERTISEMENT

Commonwealth Fusion Systems Opens Fusion Energy Campus on the Fastest Path to Bring Clean Fusion Energy to the World

Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) officially opened its new campus to support the development and deployment of commercial fusion energy. The ceremonial event included visits from U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, U.S. Senator Edward Markey, U.S. Representative Lori Trahan, Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll, along...

Oxygen Diffuser Project Underway in Kentucky

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Nashville District is executing a sustainability project funded by the Section 212 Program to install an upstream diffuser system at Wolf Creek on the Cumberland River in Jamestown, Kentucky. The district is partnering with power preference customers, the Southeastern Power Administration, and Tennessee Valley...

Honeywell’s Fuel Cell Powertrain Project Comes Alive

Honeywell Aerospace is confident that an EU-funded consortium it is leading can deliver a “commercially viable” high-power fuel cell powertrain for regional aircraft applications. Ground tests of the entire 1MW propulsion system – including an electric motor – will be performed in 2026 under the Clean Aviation-backed Newborn project. Although the...

The Moon is Too Hot and Too Cold; Now It Could Be Just Right

With temperatures on the moon ranging from -410° to a scorching 250° F, it’s an understatement to say that humans will need habitats with heat and air conditioning to survive there long term. But heating and cooling systems won’t be effective enough to support habitats for lunar exploration or even...

A World-First in HTS Magnets

Oxford-based Tokamak Energy has built a world-first set of new generation high temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets to be assembled and tested in fusion power plant-relevant scenarios. Creating clean, sustainable fusion energy requires strong magnetic fields to confine and control the extremely hot, positively-charged hydrogen fuel, which becomes a plasma several...

Civil-Engineering Work for the Major Upgrade of the LHC Completed

On January 20, CERN celebrated the completion of the civil-engineering work for the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC), the major upgrade of its flagship collider, the LHC. Approved in June 2016 and due to start operating in 2029, the HL-LHC will considerably improve the performance of the LHC by increasing...

ADVERTISEMENT

Refrigerators and Liquefiers

Two of the most common terms used in cryogenics are “refrigerator” and “liquefier.” These terms describe similar and, as will be seen, in some cases identical components. A refrigerator provides cooling (that is, absorbs heat) at cryogenic temperatures. Refrigerators typically put a working fluid (such as helium) through one of...

Air Separation

Air separation is one of the largest, as well as earliest, industrial applications of cryogenics. In this process, cryogenic temperatures are used to separate air into its constituent gases: nitrogen (78.08%), oxygen (20.95%), argon (0.93%) and carbon dioxide (0.3%). Trace gases such as krypton, neon, xenon and helium total far...

Coefficient of Performance and Figure of Merit

The coefficient of performance (COP) is used to describe the effectiveness of refrigerators, including those operating at cryogenic temperatures. The COP is defined as the amount of heat removed at the cryogenic operating temperature of the refrigerator divided by the amount of work that must be applied to remove the...

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...