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Grand Opening Soon: ITER’s Cryostat Base

The first cryostat is being installed at the ITER Tokamak pit for the French fusion project at Saint-Paul-les-Durance. The cryostat base, part of the insulating vessel that encases the ITER Tokamak, is the heaviest of all the machine's components. As the first of four cryostat sections to be lowered into...

Closely Spaced Hydrogen Atoms Could Facilitate Superconductivity in Ambient Conditions

An international team of researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (CSA CSM) has discovered the hydrogen atoms in a metal hydride material are much more tightly spaced than had been predicted for decades—a feature that could possibly facilitate superconductivity at or near room temperature and pressure....

New Coronavirus Protein Identified by Team Including Argonne National Laboratory May Lead to Drug Target

A potential drug target has been identified in a newly mapped protein of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The structure was solved by a team including the University of Chicago, the US Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory (CSA CSM), Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine...

The Hyper-Kamiokande Project Is Officially Approved

Hyper-K, a world-leading international scientific research project hosted by Japan, aims to elucidate the origin of matter and the Grand Unified Theory of elementary particles. The project consists of the Hyper-K detector, which has an 8.4 times larger fiducial mass than its predecessor, Super-Kamiokande, and will be equipped with newly...

First Instrument Delivered for Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer

The first instrument to fly on ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer, or "Juice," has been delivered for integration onto the spacecraft this month. Juice is the first large-class mission in ESA's Cosmic Vision 2015–2025 program. With launch scheduled in 2022, it will arrive at Jupiter in 2029 to perform detailed...

SpaceX’s Starship SN1 Explodes Under Cryogenic Testing

The SN1 was undergoing liquid nitrogen (LN) testing when clouds of vapor appeared underneath. A split-second later, the system exploded, lifting the whole craft a few meters into the air. The stainless steel LN tank rapidly imploded and released more vapor from the top of the craft. No fire was...

Latest in Defining Cryogenics

Dewar

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 Cryocoolers

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,...

Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG)

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...

Latest in Cryo Central

Magnets

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...

Energy Storage

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

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...

Cryocoolers

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...

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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