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Hydrogen Properties for Energy Research (HYPER) Laboratory Cool. Fuel.

The HOW of a Hydrogen Organized World

In 1964 Nikolai Kardashev, a Soviet astronomer, postulated a method of measuring a civilization’s level of technological advancement based on energy utilization. The resulting Kardashev scale describes these civilizations (summarized by me):

Type 0– Civilization harnesses organically produced and derived sources (fossil fuels, food, wood, etc.) that exist on scales comparable to individuals and small cultures within the society.
Type 1– Civilization evolves to world level energy produced and derived sources (nuclear, wind, solar, etc.) that exist on scales requiring mass efforts of an entire country and world to achieve. The energy sources have potential to simultaneously move effectively beyond the home planet … » More …

Adventures with Statistical Entropy

“The future belongs to those who can manipulate entropy; those who understand but energy will be only accountants. . . . The early industrial revolution involved energy, but the automatic factory of the future is an entropy revolution.” ~Frederic Keffer (~1900?)

Ludwig Boltzmann discovered the nature of entropy. Boltzmann was a physicist from Vienna. His first major contribution to science was derivation of the ideal gas law Pv = RT from purely statistical based arguments – no measurements involved, just free atoms modeled as billiard balls in a container with a statistical distribution of characteristics. This is illustrated in Figure 1.

molecular ratchet example» More …

Equations of State

We are building clusters for higher end binary mixture modeling work. A cluster comprises of a series of thermodynamic property models we create, or equations of state (EOS) for a given binary fluid mixture.

Previously completed clusters contain a given fluid mixed with the following: Oxygen, Methane, Ammonia, Water, Ethylene, Ethane, Hydrogen Sulfide, Argon, Propylene, Carbon Dioxide, Propane, Acetone, Butane and Isobutane, Pentane and Isopentane, Benzene, Cyclohexane, Hexane, Toluene, Heptane, Octane, Nonane, Nitrogen, and Decane. It is important to note that a thermodynamic property model can only being created for binary fluid mixtures that contain experimental measurements. Therefore, not all clusters may be comprised of all the … » More …

Evolving Professionalism in Engineering Education

Last Friday in my Systems Design class something incredibly wonderful emerged from the students. It was the first time I’d observed this in an engineering course. In short, it was professionalism– an evolved form of professionalism that I will attempt to describe here. But first, some definitions for context.

For many years I taught “professionalism” in Experimental Design via the standard US-Engineering way, starting with the Attributes of a Profession:

Work that requires sophisticated skills, the use of judgement, and the exercise of discretion. Also, the work is not routine or capable of being mechanized.
Membership in the profession requires extensive formal education, not … » More …

Vortex Tubes – Cooling without moving parts

The focus of my current research is looking at the possibility of using a vortex tube for efficient cooling of low temperature hydrogen. Our first commercial vortex tubes [1] to be used in testing arrived the other day, so I wanted to post a little demo of how this tech works to separate hot and cold gasses from a pressurized input stream.

 

First, let me give a brief introduction to what happens inside a vortex tube. As you can … » More …

Musings of a Cryogenicist: Day 5 – Vacuum Gauges (everything you wanted to know and more!)

In my last post I talked about the 3 main types of Vacuum gauges available for use. They were:

Force measuring (105 – 10-2 Pa)
Heat transfer (10 – 10-2 Pa)
Electrical charge transfer (ionization) (100 – 10-9 Pa)

I also talked about how I have a FRG-700 Inverted Magnetron Pirani Gauge currently connected to my Cryostat chamber. Well now I want to look at each of these types of vacuum gauges in a little more depth giving the general method of vacuum measurement for each. Understanding how each of these work at a basic level and their limitations can be … » More …

Campbell’s Law and performance evaluations

It’s professional review time here in Academia and I’m engrossed in my now annual routine of pondering the meaning of the statistics we all use to justify ourselves. Enter Campbell’s Law:

“The more any quantitative social indicator (or even some qualitative indicator) is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.”

Campbell’s original paper can be found here. It’s a similar concept to Goodhart’s law:

“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to … » More …

3 wishes for the Cryogenics Society of America (CSA)

The Cryogenics Society of America recently issued a call for “greatest wishes” from members. Here are 3:
1) For the national academies to release a report emphasizing the importance of cryogenics to national security (similar to their report on the need for plasma science). This report needs to emphasize the importance of training engineers with cryogenic design expertise. I keep getting phone calls from companies and labs desperate to hire someone that’s trained and domestic, but have no one to recommend.

2) Small-modular hydrogen liquefaction with efficiency better than 30 % of carnot. This would kick-start the US hydrogen economy, which will almost … » More …

Musings of a Cryogenicist: Day 4 – What’s in a Vacuum?

So what IS in a vacuum? Nothing? Something? Everything?! Well first we need to define what a vacuum is. In day to day life we consider any gas that has less pressure than its surroundings to be in a state of ‘vacuum.’ That doesn’t mean that it has NOTHING in it, it just really means it has less in it. So what’s a good practical example of this? A vacuum cleaner: it produces an area of lower pressure than the surrounding atmosphere giving it the ‘sucking’ capabilities that we use to clear an area of dirt or dust. Now I assume that most people know … » More …