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Pulsating Heat Pipes Hold Promise for Future Space Flight

As space flight missions move away from tanks filled with cryogenic liquids towards cryocoolers to provide cooling for cryogenic payloads, new heat transport technologies are needed to cool distributed systems. Researchers have recently investigated pulsating (or oscillating) heat pipes (PHPs) at laboratories and universities in several countries. Possible applications for...

Advancing Cryogenic Temperature Instrumentation

Ryan Oliver explores the evolution of the techniques used to measure and control temperature since this time, with a focus on cryogenic temperatures as a tool, rather than techniques used by those working on defining temperature scales.

Nanoparticles Key to Tissue Preservation

A multidisciplinary research team has discovered a groundbreaking process to cool and rewarm large-scale animal heart valves and blood vessels preserved at very low temperatures. The discovery could result in a major step forward in saving millions of human lives by increasing the availability of organs and tissues for transplantation,...

APS Joins SCOAP3 Consortium

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, and the American Physical Society (APS) have entered into an agreement through SCOAP3 to provide open access to high-energy physics articles published in APS journals. The partnership, which begins in January 2018, covers articles from Physical Review C, Physical Review D and Physical...

NCIS Bungles Investigation, Conflates Cryogenics and Cryonics

A recent episode NCIS, a popular CBS police procedural, featured a villain who killed his victims with liquid nitrogen, interring them alive inside a homemade cryonics chamber. During the big reveal, the NCIS writers conflate cryonics with cryogenics, using one of the show's trope scientific experts to present the latter...

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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...

Wind Tunnels

Dr. Robert Kilgore The development of the cryogenic wind tunnel is one of many significant breakthroughs in both cryogenics and wind-tunnel technology made during the past millennium. Interest in the development of high-speed commercial and military aircraft resulted in a review of problems of flow simulation in transonic wind tunnels...

History of Cryogenics

From the Fall 1999 issue of Cold Facts magazine Millennium Breakthroughs A variety of CSA members give different perspectives on the past millennium: What were the most significant breakthroughs in cryogenics during the past millennium? Prof. R.G. Scurlock, Kryos Technology, scurlock@soton.ac.uk (“Breakthrough” = way through obstacles — Oxford English Dictionary)...

Cryobiology

Andreas Sputtek Past President Society for Cryobiology sputtek@uke.uni-hamburg.de or http://www.sputtek.de/. The word cryobiology (from the Greek words “cryo” = cold, “bios” = life, and “logos” = science) literally signifies the science of life at low temperatures. In practice, this field comprises the study of any biological material or system (e.g.,...

Cryogenic Insulation

James E. Fesmire Cryogenics Test Laboratory NASA Kennedy Space Center james.e.fesmire@nasa.gov Introduction In today’s world, the use of cryogenics and low-temperature refrigeration is taking a more and more significant role. From the food industry, transportation, energy, and medical applications to the Space Shuttle, cryogenic liquids must be stored, handled, and...

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...