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

Superconducting Radio Frequency Activities at CERN

CERN has a long history in superconducting radio frequency (SRF) technology. What started with a few SRF cavities in the 1980s has now become a major field of activity. Today CERN is not only running a variety of superconducting RF installations and projects but is also preparing for a new...

Next Generation Multilayer Insulation with Discrete Spacer Technology, Parts 1 and 2

Cryogenic thermal engineers are familiar with multilayer insulation (MLI), developed in the late 1950s as lightweight insulation for cryogenic propellants. MLI is used as high performance thermal insulation for launch vehicles, spacecraft, cryogenic tanks, dewars and spaceborne instruments. MLI operates in high vacuum, where its performance exceeds other insulations by...

SuperKEKB Commissioning Begins, Successful Storage of Beams in its Electron and Positron Rings Reported

After five years of large-scale upgrade work, Japan's High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) began test operations on SuperKEKB, an electron-positron colliding accelerator. SuperKEKB represents a major upgrade from the previous KEKB accelerator and is the culmination of years of construction that started in the second half of 2010. Commissioning...

James Webb “Telescope” Documentary Available to Stream

Discovery's "Telescope" documentary, highlighting the high-stakes mission to build NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, premiered on Feb. 20 and is now available for streaming on the TV channel's website. The Webb telescope, which is the scientific successor to—and 100 times more powerful than—Hubble, will peer back over 13.5 billion years...

Jefferson Lab Invites Public to Open House on April 30

The US Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, or Jefferson Lab, will hold an open house for the public on Saturday, April 30, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. It is an opportunity for people of all ages to spend the day exploring this world-class research facility. Visitors...

Fermilab Scientists Discover New Four-Flavor Particle

Scientists on the DZero collaboration at the US Department of Energy’s Fermilab have discovered a new particle—the latest member to be added to the exotic species of particle known as tetraquarks. Quarks are point-like particles that typically come in packages of two or three, the most familiar of which are...

Latest in Defining Cryogenics

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...

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

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...

Separated layers of ice over a pipe

I want to know that why there are different layers of ice over a pipe carrying a cryogenic fluid, each layer separated with clear marks / lines? What do these layers signify?

Using nitrogen as a cryogen

Is it possible to achieve -200˚C using nitrogen as a cryogen?

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