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

Oxford and Zurich Instruments collaborate to improve low temperature measurements

Oxford Instruments NanoScience (CSA CSM) on January 7 announced a new technical collaboration with Zurich Instruments, a leader for digital lock-in amplifiers, focused on combining equipment from both companies in order to reduce the time between installation and measurement in cryogenic systems.

BCS Reimagines Life Support with Liquid Air

Former music teacher turned NASA propellants and pneumatics mechanic Ed Blalock understands cryogenic gases, and has positioned his new company, BCS Life Support, LLC, to revolutionize first responder and mine safety with cryogenic systems. The key is liquid air. BCS partnered with NASA’s Biomedical Lab and the National Institute for...

Mixed Refrigerant System Designed to Cool Deep Survey Telescope

When the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) first turns to survey the southern sky from its Chilean mountaintop perch in 2022, at least one group of scientists will be focused more on the telescope’s camera than the stunning images it’s expected to render. Those researchers are currently designing and testing...

Magnesium Diboride Superconducting Magnets Used in MRI

As a result of the growing concern over helium shortage and the need for direct conduction cooling, Hyper Tech’s magnesium diboride (MgB2) superconductors have been making substantial inroads into applications previously dominated by niobium titanium (NbTi). Working with Brookhaven National Laboratory, NASA, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and others...

Maglab Scientists Use NMR in Battle Against Influenza

Scientists at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (Maglab) (CSA CSM) have detailed the mechanism that activates influenza and permits it to reproduce in human cells. The research, published in Structure, shows for the first time how protons move through the virus’s M2 proton channel and portends the development of...

LHC ends 2015 with a cliffhanger

The final Large Hadron Collider results of the year are in. Particles circulated in the LHC at CERN on December 13 for the last time in 2015, and, two days later, the two large general-purpose experiments, ATLAS and CMS, presented their results from LHC Run 2. Both experiments saw an...

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

Primary Standards

Elie K. Track Hypres, Inc. elie@hypres.com http://www.hypres.com/ Primary standards involve the exact definition and realization of units of measurement for various quantities, time, length, mass, voltage, resistance, current, etc. International agreements based on the latest scientific knowledge define those units, and their realizations vary depending on the unit itself. For...

Shrink Fitting

Robin A. Rhodes Cryogenic Institute of New England, Inc. rrhodes@nitrofreeze.com Shrink fitting, (or “compression fitting” as it is sometimes called), is a method used to insert a pin or bushing into a housing or other assembly requiring an extremely tight tolerance fit. It can be used as an alternative to...

Telecommunications

From the Winter 2004 issue of Cold Facts magazine The recent M-Calc IV — 4th Industry Assessment workshop discussing military and commercial applications for low-cost cryocoolers, held in November in San Diego, highlighted progress being made in cryogenics as applied in telecommunications. The reliability and long lifetime of projects now...

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...

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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