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Chart Announces Sale of Qdrive Technologies

Chart Industries, Inc. (CSA CSM) has completed the sale of certain assets related to its Qdrive® set of products to RIX Industries. For the past several years Chart has developed and supplied QDrive technologies to RIX in support of liquid oxygen systems for military applications. Qdrive operations currently located in...

HYPRES Launches New Subsidiary, Expands Efforts in Quantum Computing

HYPRES, a CSA CSM known as the Digital Superconductor Company, has launched Superconducting Energy Efficient Quantum Computing, or SeeQC, a wholly owned subsidiary headquartered in Rome. SeeQC will focus on developing superconducting technologies for a variety of applications, including scalable fault-tolerant quantum computing, quantum communications and quantum simulators. The company...

Cleaning the LHC, Where Air Particles Count as Dirt

Inside the Large Hadron Collider, beams of particles sprint 17 miles around in opposite directions through a pair of evacuated beam pipes. The interior of the pipes needs to be spotless, but it’s not dirt or grime that clogs the LHC—it’s microscopic air molecules.

Cool Pair Plus Expands Distribution Services to Asia

Wincosyn Solution Co., Ltd., of China has selected Cool Pair Plus (CSA CSM) to support its multiple MRI systems, specifically magnet sub-systems, throughout China. Wincosyn Solution is an integrated delivery network of nine independent service companies that provide hospitals turnkey solutions for CT, MRI, and Cath Labs, ECT and linear...

“Bad Metal” Reveals Clues to High-Temperature Superconductivity

A research collaboration based at Stony Brook University has found that “stripes” of electronic charge, which may play a key role in superconductivity, persist across surprisingly high temperatures, shape conductivity and have direction-dependent properties. The findings—published in Physical Review Letters—came as the group studied metals that conduct electricity poorly, looking...

NIST Hybrid Cooler Hits 2 Kelvin

NIST scientists have devised a novel hybrid system for cooling superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPD). It uses a pulse-tube refrigerator cooled to 10 K to precool a Joule-Thomson cryocooler that can then reach 2 K. That level of cooling has typically been achieved with liquid helium systems that are costly,...

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Refrigerators and Liquefiers

Two of the most common terms used in cryogenics are “refrigerator” and “liquefier.” These terms describe similar and, as will be seen, in some cases identical components. A refrigerator provides cooling (that is, absorbs heat) at cryogenic temperatures. Refrigerators typically put a working fluid (such as helium) through one of...

Air Separation

Air separation is one of the largest, as well as earliest, industrial applications of cryogenics. In this process, cryogenic temperatures are used to separate air into its constituent gases: nitrogen (78.08%), oxygen (20.95%), argon (0.93%) and carbon dioxide (0.3%). Trace gases such as krypton, neon, xenon and helium total far...

Coefficient of Performance and Figure of Merit

The coefficient of performance (COP) is used to describe the effectiveness of refrigerators, including those operating at cryogenic temperatures. The COP is defined as the amount of heat removed at the cryogenic operating temperature of the refrigerator divided by the amount of work that must be applied to remove the...

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...