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20th Year of Particle Smashups Underway at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider

The 20th year of particle collisions is underway at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a US Department of Energy Office of Science user facility for nuclear physics research at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The particle smashups will continue over a range of collision energies through the first half of 2020,...

Coldest Chemical Reaction Ever Transforms Future Observations

A team led by Kang-Kuen Ni, associate professor of chemistry, chemical biology and physics at Harvard, achieved the coldest chemical reaction in the known universe in late November. Forcing two ultracold molecules to meet and react, they broke and formed the coldest bonds in the history of molecular couplings. The...

Will Cryogenically Freezing Yourself and Coming Back to Life Ever Be Reality?

When people die, many things can be done with their bodies––embalming, cremation, donation to science and so on—but some people will choose to have their dead bodies, or parts thereof, frozen with the expectation that technology will advance enough to bring them back to life. Reactions, a video series from...

NASA Breaks SLS Liquid Hydrogen Tank to Test Extreme Limits

Engineers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville AL deliberately pushed the world's largest rocket fuel tank beyond its design limits to really understand its breaking point. The test version of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket's liquid hydrogen tank withstood more than 260% of expected flight loads over...

Hyundai Nexo Sets Hydrogen Fuel Cell Distance Record

Celebrity explorer Bertrand Piccard drove Hyundai’s Nexo SUV 484 miles across France in November, setting a new world record for the longest distance traveled in a hydrogen-powered vehicle on a single tank. Within the category of zero-emissions options, the hydrogen fuel cell is constantly being eclipsed by electric power. But...

Jefferson Lab Scientists Are Designing Accelerators that Could Help Clean the Environment

Physicists at Jefferson Laboratory are working on two accelerator designs they hope could change water treatment. It’s been 30 years since a pilot project in Miami-Dade County found that blasting wastewater with electrons could clean it up—from microorganisms to harsh chemicals. Fay Hannon is designing a low-energy, portable accelerator for...

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

Power usage: cryogenic systems vs. regular refrigerators

A recent project highlighted to me that closed cycle cryogenic cooling systems use far more electrical power to reduce temperatures by a few watts than regular refrigerators. I am sure it must be something to do with the extra difficulty of removing the heat from the liquid nitrogen or similar...

Redundancy strategies for mechanical -80C freezers

I was wondering what kind of redundancy strategies are people using for their mechanical -80C freezers? I am aware of the following. Please add if you are doing something different. 1) 1 Backup freezer for every 10 freezers – Empty and maintained at -80C at all times 2) Backup C02...

Safety guidelines for handling cryo vessels of nitrogen

I am looking for any safety guidelines for handling cryogenic vessels of nitrogen indoors and outdoors. I am especially interested in recommendations for area monitors to detect leaks, flow detection devices, etc.

Method to move components in a cryogenic environment

Does anyone know of a method with which to reliably move components in a cryogenic environment? We are interested in moving detectors in a cryogenically cooled (2K) vacuum chamber, which is contained within a larger cryostat/isolation vacuum with thermal shields. As the desired horizontal or vertical displacement is between 10...

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