Heat Measurement in Cryogenics | 26

Cryogenic Coatings for Deep Space..................... 28LIGO Prepares Cryogenic Update ...................... 38SCW Student Scholarship Established .............. 45

ICC19 Conference Recap .................................... 8Novel High Effectiveness Recuperator ............... 12New Cryostat Design Volume ............................. 18

Volume 32 Number 4

Cold Facts | August 2016 | Volume 32 Number 4 www.cryogenicsociety.org5

Inside This Issue

3522 45

In all instances, “CSA CSM” indicates a Corporate Sustaining Member of CSA.

ICC19 Conference Recap

LOX System For Navy Cuts Cost, Increases Efficiency

Large Pulse Tube Coolers Deliver 1,280 W at 77 K

Novel High Effectiveness Recuperator Developed

Cryostats for Space, Superconductivity and More

Solving Wiring Issues in a Closed Cycle Optical Cryostat

New Cryostat Design Volume

Short History of Heat Measurement in Cryogenics

Cryogenic Coatings for Deep Space

Annular Air Leaks in an LH2 Storage Tank

LIGO Collaboration Prepares Cryogenic Update

Predicting Language Deficits after Stroke

Oh, Canada! Tips on CRN and International Code

Low-Defect Nitrogen-Doped Graphene

SCW Student Scholarship Established

In Memoriam: Dr. Karl A. Gschneidner and Dr. Helen Edwards

Conference Connect: ICHEP 2016 and Space Tech Expo 2016

Executive Director’s Letter

Defining Cryogenics

Space Cryogenics

Cryo-Oops

Meyer Tool 3-Stage Hydrogen Heat Exchanger

Braemar Creates a Niche in the LNG Market

The Scoop on LN2 Ice Cream Installations

Cool Pair Plus Offers Life Support to Aging MRIs

ON OUR COVER

DID YOU KNOW?

FEATURES

COLUMNS

The Cryostat-500 instrument shown here is undergoing tests at the Cryogenics Test Labo-ratory at NASA Kennedy Space Center. CSA President James Fesmire is the senior prin-ciple investigator there, and in this issue he begins a four-part series on boiloff calorimetry for the measurement of very low heat flows. Part 1 begins on page 26 and provides a short history of heat measurement in cryogenics.

8

10

11

12

16

17

18

26

28

36

38

40

41

42

45

46

48

6

21

22

24

30

32

34

35

CALENDAR

50

52

53

PEOPLE & COMPANIES

PRODUCT SHOWCASE

Publication of the 2017 Buyer’s Guide is just around the corner, so now is the time to review your company’s listing at https://csabg.org/. Please contact Jo Snyder (jo@cryogenicso-ciety.org) by Oct. 28 with any updates you would like to make.

The issue will feature editorial content on insulation, infor-mation on handling expansion and contraction and personal accounts exploring relationships with mentors. Please contact Brian Dudley (editor@cryogenicsociety.org) with any questions or story ideas. Content is due by Oct. 28.

8

SPOTLIGHTS

Cold Facts | August 2016 | Volume 32 Number 4 www.cryogenicsociety.org8

A group of 180 researchers and en-gineers from 12 countries gath-ered in San Diego June 20-23

for the 19th International Cryocooler Conference (ICC19), coordinated by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and held at the Town and Country Resort and Convention Center.

The conference included a combina-tion of 80 oral and poster presentations over the course of three days. Presentation topics included cryocooler modeling and analysis, cryocooler control electronics, large-scale cryocooler applications as well as cryocooler miniaturization, laboratory and aerospace applications.

On June 19, CSA hosted “Foundations of Cryocoolers,” its daylong short course designed to provide attendees with an un-derstanding of cryocooler fundamentals and a description of how these principles are used in various types of gas-cycle cryocoolers to achieve temperatures from about 2 K to 150 K. Dr. Ray Radebaugh, consultant to the Applied Chemicals and Materials Division at NIST Boulder and a world-renowned expert in the field of cryogenics, taught the course together with Prof. Marcel ter Brake, a noted leader in the cryogenics field who is on

the Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Twente, the Netherlands.

Reggie Little, from Iris Technology, was one of the course attendees. Like many in the cryogenics community he got in-volved in the industry because there was an on-the-job need. “But I didn’t know any-thing about what a cryocooler was, how it works or the different types, and so that’s why I attended the short course,” he says. “And now, after eight hours, I pretty much have the background and understanding of what’s going on. Now it all makes sense [and] I’m a happy person. It’s just a good program to get into, a really good course.”

Kelsey McCusker, a thermal engineer at Northrop Grumman and one of CSA’s 2016 Young Faces in Cryogenics, agrees. “There’s a lot of trial and error [in research fields] so it’s really nice to be able to come in here and get a lot of really condensed, useful infor-mation to eliminate a lot of the mistakes we could have potentially made in the future,” she says. “And, I like that [Ray] attaches a lot of it to the theory because then I’m able to really look at all the different cryocool-ers and understand why one is better at a certain temperature or why another is better with a certain cooling capacity. And I think breaking it down like this is really useful.”

Radebaugh says teaching the course has been rewarding for him, especially when he is able to watch individuals new to the field develop into top researchers. “I see people come to the class that are maybe just starting in the field and then a few years later at the cryocooler conference they are presenting papers with some new ideas,” he says. “I’m learning from them in the pro-cess…so, it’s very rewarding to me.”

Through the 20 years that he has taught the course, Radebaugh says the big-gest changes he’s seen have been in space applications, and indeed, the aerospace community has traditionally organized the conference. This year’s conference in-cluded a strong focus on space cryocoolers, detailed by Peter Shirron in his column of page 22 of this issue. The column includes a performance summary for long-life cryo-coolers provided by JPL’s Ron Ross.

“We’ve got two or three coolers in orbit running 24/7 for 18 years,” Ross says. And there are “over 30 coolers up there now with over 10 years of continuous operation.”

Ross attended his first conference in 1988, chaired in 1994 and has worked extensively over the years to help distribute the papers presented at the conference. For some time

th

1 2

1)Wing Sze Lui (JPL), Dean Johnson (JPL), Denise Gutierrez (JPL), Nga Vu-Lintag (JPL), Yvonne Chen (JPL), Jose Rodriguez (JPL) and Sidney Yuan (Aerospace Corporation) pose outside the conference center. 2)Ted Conrad (Raytheon), Mary Bradley, Peter Bradley (NIST), Alex Veprik (SCD) and Valery Borsenets (SLAC National Laboratory) take a break while exploring the San Diego Natural History Museum.

Cold Facts | August 2016 | Volume 32 Number 4 www.cryogenicsociety.org9

the conference worked with various publish-ing houses, but in 2006 Ross helped start ICC Press, an in-house publishing company that now provides the papers in open access.

Ross says the open access is “terribly im-portant” for the community. “The whole rate at which cryocoolers are advancing is very de-pendent on how quickly you can get the word out,” he says. “I’m still embarrassed with our situation to some extent with the period we were with the New York publishing houses because all of those papers are there but they charge you $30 apiece to look at them. It totally inhibits people being able to browse through the library of the old papers and pick up the technology.”

The conference provided attendees this year with digital copies of the peer-reviewed papers. They will also be avail-able on the ICC website and published in Cryocoolers 19, a hard bound proceedings book distributed to conference attendees via mail later this year and thereafter available to order from Amazon.com in early 2017.

The volume will include a paper from Alan Caughley, technology group manager at Callaghan Innovation, whose presentation on a new range of large pulse tube cryocoolers (see page 11) opened the conference. “I had one person collar me almost immediately af-terwards,” he says. “And quite a few people have come up to talk about it. It’s been good. Well worthwhile. A lot of people are inter-ested in the machine itself and the utility of the machine…It’s not one of the old things being refined more; this is something new.”

He says that coming to ICC is essential for companies such as Callaghan that oper-ate in the more remote areas of the world. “We don’t have that community in New Zealand, so I’ve got to come and talk to all the people here.”

One thing New Zealand does have, however, is a large community of whales. And attendees learned all about them from a special whale exhibit during the confer-ence banquet held Wednesday evening at the San Diego Natural History Museum.

The Del Lago Trio (a cello, flute and wood-wind ensemble) provided relaxing back-ground music for the evening.

After the conference concluded, a group of 50 interested attendees enjoyed a private tour of the world headquarters of Quantum Design, Inc. (CSA CSM), a manufacturer of cryogen-free measurement systems.

ICC19 was chaired by JPL’s Dean Johnson and co-chaired by Jose Rodriguez and Sidney Yuan of JPL and Aerospace Corporation re-spectively. Carl Kirkconnell from West Coast Solutions and Mark Zagarola of Creare LLC (CSA CSM) served as program chairs.

Zagarola’s team presented a recu-perator at ICC19, discussed on page 12, and the company will host ICC20 in 2018. “Creare is extremely excited and honored to host the 20th International Cryocooler Conference,” says Zagarola. “We look forward to welcoming the community to picturesque and historic New England in June of 2018.” ■

3

6

4

5

7 8

3)Guests line the entry stairs at Quantum Design before taking a tour of its new facility. 4)Attendees take notes during the Foundations of Cryocoolers short course presented by 5)Dr. Ray Radebaugh (left) and Marcel ter Brake. 6)Local flora on the nature trails of Balboa Park. 7)Musicians welcome visitors to the Fiesta de Reyes market. 8) Garden adjacent to the Estudilllo House, a national historic landmark in San Diego's Old Town.