Cold Facts Digital – Page 63 – The go-to place for Cryogenics and Superconductivity

The Robots of CERN

The LHC contains 120 tons of liquid helium kept at 1.9 K. And even with safety systems in place, engineers there prefer to limit underground access when the cryogenic systems are activated. Enter TIM—the Train Inspection Monorail. TIM is a chain of wagons, sensors and cameras that snake along a...

NASA Telescope Reveals Batch of Earth-size, Habitable-zone Planets around Single Star

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed a new exoplanet discovery: the first known system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star. Three of these planets are firmly located in the habitable zone, the area around the parent star where a rocky planet is most likely to have liquid water.

Still Cooling after All These Years

Fifteen years is a long time for any high-tech cryogenic device to continue working, but that is just what an M77 cryocooler aboard NASA's RHESSI satellite has accomplished. Designed by Sunpower, Inc. (CSA CSM), the unit's piston has cycled over 26 billion times over this period. And, as periodic oil...

Cornell Professor Takes Home 2017 Lee Osheroff Richardson Science Prize

Oxford Instruments has awarded Dr. Brad Ramshaw, assistant professor at Cornell University, its 2017 LOR Science Prize. The Lee Osheroff Richardson (LOR) Science Prize promotes and recognizes the novel work of young scientists working in the fields of low temperatures or high magnetic fields in the Americas. The trophy and...

CSA Remembers Peter Gifford 1947 – 2017

We regret to report that Peter Gifford, longtime leader of Cryomech, Inc., passed away in January 2017, surrounded by family and friends at his Syracuse home. He was 68. Gifford was a leader in the cryogenic community, a dedicated member of CSA and one of the second-generation industry leaders affectionately...

CUORE Reaches Its Operating Temperature

The Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events experiment (CUORE) reached a new milestone in late January when its detector reached its operating temperature of 10 mk. The detector has 19 towers formed from 988 Tellurium oxide crystals, and it weighs nearly 1,650 lbs. Engineers finished installing the detector into the...

Latest in Defining Cryogenics

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...

Latest in Cryo Central

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...

Latest in Ask the Experts

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...

Safety guidelines for handling cryo vessels of nitrogen

I am looking for any safety guidelines for handling cryogenic vessels of nitrogen indoors and outdoors. I am especially interested in recommendations for area monitors to detect leaks, flow detection devices, etc.

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...

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