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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...

A Superconductor Story with a Twist

There’s a literal disturbance in the force that alters what physicists have long thought of as a characteristic of superconductivity, according to Rice University scientists. Rice physicists Pengcheng Dai and Andriy Nevidomskyy and their colleagues used simulations and neutron scattering experiments that show the atomic structure of materials to reveal...

Uganda’s First Cryopreservation Unit is Conserving Banana Diversity

Christopher Bendana of Cornell University’s Alliance for Science reports that Uganda’s National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) is using liquid nitrogen to conserve banana cell lines in a pioneering effort that could help researchers striving to combat disease and climate threats. The science of storing tissues in liquid nitrogen, also commonly...

NASA to Partner with US Companies to Develop ‘tipping point’ Technologies

NASA is partnering with US companies to develop “tipping point” technologies that have the potential to significantly benefit the commercial space economy and future NASA missions, including lunar lander and deep space rocket engine technologies. Several of these partnerships involve cryogenics. A technology is considered at a “tipping point” if...

Why Cryo-EM is Gaining Popularity in Structural Biology

Cryo-electron microscopy, also known as Cryo-EM, is a technique for visualizing macromolecular structures which has been developed over the last two decades. Shelley Farrar reports that Cryo-EM is a form of transmission electron microscopy which permits samples to be studied at cryogenic temperatures. Biological structures such as ribosomes and mitochondria...

Latest in Defining Cryogenics

Stability

Stability refers to the ability of a device employing superconductors to remain in its superconducting state after part of the superconductor transitions back to its normal conducting state due to a disturbance. While the concept can apply to many superconducting devices—transmission lines, generators, motors, etc.—it is most commonly considered in...

Cable-in-Conduit Conductors

Cable-in-Conduit Conductors (CICC) are a common form of superconducting cable used in large-scale applications. There are several varieties of CICCs, but they all consist of many small, stabilized superconducting wires contained within a conduit through which a coolant (typically supercritical He II) flows. Figure 1 shows the cross section of...

Bayonet Coupling

A bayonet coupling is a demountable joint that allows for quick and easy connection and disconnection of cryogenic components, including transfer lines, cryostats, liquefiers and refrigerators. Bayonets provide a number of advantages, chief among them the ability to connect and disconnect the bayonets while components they connect are still at...

Latest in Cryo Central

Cryogenic Treatment of Materials

F.J. Diekman Controlled Thermal Processing, Inc. info@metal-wear.com Cryogenic Processing (also called cryogenic treatment, and incorrectly “cryogenic tempering”) is a process that uses cryogenic temperatures to modify materials to enhance their performance. Cryogenic Processing involves the slow reduction in temperature of the material to at least -300°F (-185°C) and holding the...

Cryogenics in Space

Peter Kittel University of California-Berkeley pkittel@cal.berkeley.edu Space Cryogenics is the application of cryogenics to space missions. These applications fall into two broad areas, supporting space science missions and supporting the space transportation infrastructure. Science applications: The atmosphere is opaque to much of the electro-magnetic spectrum. In space, the absence of...

Cryosurgery

Review of Cryosurgery Boris Rubinsky, PhD Hebrew University School of Science and Engineering Research Center for Biomedical Engineering 78b Ross Building Givat Ram, Jerusalem 91904 Israel rubinsky@cs.huji.ac.il as published in Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering, August 2000, Vol. 2, pp. 157-187. Abstract: Cryosurgery is a surgical technique that employs freezing...

Liquefied Natural Gas

Liquefied Natural Gas as it relates to the Field of Cryogenics John W. Bonn VJ Systems, LLC johnbonn@vjsystems-lic.com Today the world is looking for a cleaner fuel and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plays a large part in achieving this goal. LNG in a liquid form is at -162°C (-259°F) and...

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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