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Chart Industries Set to Acquire VRV Group

Chart Industries, Inc. (CSA CSM) announced its agreement to acquire VRV s.p.a. and its subsidiaries, a multinational corporation with facilities for the design and manufacture of equipment serving the cryogenic, energy and petrochemical markets.

Fermilab Awarded More than $10 million for Quantum Science

The US Department of Energy has awarded scientists at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (CSA CSM) more than $10 million to spur research that could revolutionize scientific understanding of nature and the very way it's investigated.

Cryogenic Cooling of Sensing Devices Conference

Cryogenic Cooling of Sensing Devices, a conference sponsored by SPIE, the international professional society for optics and photonics technology, will be held April 14-18, 2019, at the Baltimore Convention Center, Maryland. Conference chairs are Tonny Benschop, Thales Cryogenics B.V. (Netherlands); Sergey V. Riabzev, RICOR Cryogenic & Vacuum Systems (Israel); and...

Staying Chill, Even When Disaster Strikes

When most people prepare for a hurricane, they buy food and water. But when scientist Amanda Moors sees one of those big, red, pinwheel-shaped storms appear on the weather map, she buys liquid nitrogen. Moors spends a lot of time thinking about failure. Not career failure or experiment failure, but...

The ‘Gloo’ Behind James Webb Space Telescope’s Spider Technology

It takes a team of talented individuals working in unison to brainstorm, build and deliver what will become the world’s most powerful space telescope. Marcelino Sansebastian is a Senior Instrument Technician at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who has been deeply involved with NASA’s James Webb Space...

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Helium-3

Helium-3 (3He) is one of the two stable isotopes of helium. The other is the much more common Helium-4 (4He). Neither of these isotopes should be confused with He II, which is the second liquid phase of 4He. He II was discussed in this column in the Spring 2010 edition...

Cryopumping

Cryopumping refers to the use of cryogenic temperatures to produce vacuum in enclosed spaces. More broadly, it can also refer to the removal of gases via cryogenic temperatures from a flow stream or enclosure without necessarily resulting in vacuum pressures. This is an important application of cryogenics and is used...

Thermal Acoustic Oscillations

Thermal Acoustic Oscillations (TAO) are a common event in cryogenic systems that can have significant adverse effects on the performance of the system. TAOs are sustained pressure oscillations that can occur in tubes containing gas, closed at one end (the warm end) that have a very large temperature gradient along...

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...

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...