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FCC and the Superconducting Magnets of the Future

Physicists at CERN are counting on new magnets, ones capable of generating fields of 16 Tesla or more, to increase the energy of its future circular colliders. To achieve these levels, researchers working on CERN's Future Circular Collider (FCC) study have developed a test station known as FRESCA2, a dipole...

Injecting New Life into the LHC

CERN launched the LHC Injectors Upgrade (LIU) project in 2010 to prepare its accelerator complex for the immense challenges of the HL-LHC. Now, in a report appearing in CERN Courier, engineers from the project have provided a status update. In addition to enabling the necessary proton and ion injector chains...

Concrete Applications for Accelerator Science

Particle accelerators are a lot more than simply the engines of particle physics research, according to scientists working on the Accelerator Application Development and Demonstration (A2D2) project at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (CSA CSM). Electron beams generated by linear accelerators have all kinds of practical uses, the researchers say, such...

UK commits $88 Million to LBNF/DUNE Project

The United States and United Kingdom have entered into the first-ever umbrella science agreement between the two countries, a move that will see the UK contribute $88 million to the LBNF/DUNE project hosted at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab, CSA CSM). The funding makes the UK the largest country investing...

IBM Reports Breakthrough in Quantum Computing

Simulating molecules on quantum computers just got easier according to new results obtained with IBM’s superconducting quantum hardware. In an article published in Nature, IBM researchers discuss the implementation of a new quantum algorithm capable of efficiently computing the lowest energy state of small molecules. By mapping the electronic structure...

Northrop Grumman to Acquire Orbital ATK for $9 Billion

Northrop Grumman Corporation has announced its plan to acquire Orbital ATK, Inc., a global leader in aerospace and defense technologies, for approximately $7.8 billion plus the assumption of $1.4 billion in net debt. The boards of both companies have approved the agreement and the transaction is expected to close in...

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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...

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....

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...

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...