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Whole Body Cryotherapy

Interest in low temperature treatment is increasing and whole body cryotherapy (WBC) devices are becoming available not only in medical centers but also in local gyms and spa centers. Many governments and medical professionals have thus turned attention to WBC, evaluating the treatment for its effectiveness and safety. The US...

Cryocoolers 19 Proceedings Available Now

"Cryocoolers 19," a 654-page compilation of the proceedings of the 19th International Cryocooler Conference held in San Diego, California, June 20-23, 2016, is now available and has been mailed to registered participants. Published by ICC Press, Boulder, Colorado, and edited by S.D. Miller and R.G. Ross, Jr., the volume features...

CERN Ramps Up Neutrino Program

In the midst of the verdant French countryside looms a workshop the size of an aircraft hangar. Inside, CERN technicians are busy constructing two 8-meter tall cubes to test prototype detectors for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). Each will in time contain 770 metric tons of liquid argon permeated...

NIST Physicists Squeeze Light, Cool Microscopic Drum below Quantum Limit

Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have cooled a microscopic mechanical drum to less than one-fifth of a single quantum, or packet of energy. The result, according to the research team, is lower than ordinarily predicted by quantum physics and the technique used could theoretically cool...

Ultracold Liquid Hydrogen May Be Fuel of the Future

NASA has wrapped up testing on a new cooling system that supercools hydrogen to -423°F. It's housed in a shuttle-era storage facility engineers saved from demolition five years ago at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and thereafter transformed into a test site for new ground operations demo units.

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Regenerators

Regenerators or regenerative heat exchangers are a key component of cryocoolers such as pulse tube cryocoolers (Cold Facts, August 2014). Regenerator performance greatly affects the coefficient of performance of cryocoolers. Improvements in regenerator design and, in particular, regenerator materials have been an important factor in the improvement of the performance...

Pulse Tube Cryocoolers

The development of pulse tube cryocoolers has been a significant topic of research and development over the past 20 or so years. Pulse tube cryocoolers have a number of advantages over other types of cryocoolers and are now available commercially. In order to understand pulse tube cryocoolers, it’s best to...

Thermal Expansion

Thermal expansion refers to the change in size (length or volume) that a material undergoes as its temperature changes. In cryogenic systems this effect can be quite large and must be allowed for in the design. In isotropic materials, which include most engineering materials, the thermal expansion is the same...

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...