The last few years have witnessed a substantial maturing of long life Stirling-cycle cryocoolers built upon the heritage of the flexure-bearing cryocoolers from Oxford University, and have seen the emergence of mature pulse tube cryocoolers competing head-to-head with the Stirling cryocoolers. Hydrogen sorption cryocoolers, Gifford-McMahon cryocoolers with rare earth regenerators, and helium Joule-Thomson cryocoolers have also made tremendous progress in opening up applications in the 4 K to 10 K temperature range. Tactical Stirling cryocoolers, now commonplace in the defense industry, are finding application in a number of cost constrained commercial applications and space missions, and are achieving ever longer lives as they move to linear-drive, clearance-seal compressors. Building on this expanding availability of commercially viable cryocoolers, numerous new applications are being enabled; many of these involve infrared imaging systems, and high temperature superconductors in the medical and communications fields. The vibration sensitivity of many of the infrared and medical imaging applications has led to the recognition that cryocooler-generated vibration and EMI is a critical performance parameter for these applications. In response, advanced closed-loop active vibration control systems have been developed and are being delivered to their first users. Application experiments, designed to explore, troubleshoot and resolve product integration issues, are occurring on an ever widening front, particularly in the fields of infrared imaging and spectroscopy, gamma-ray spectroscopy, and high-temperature superconductor applications. An important lesson is that integrating cryogenic systems requires care and thoughtfulness in a broad range of engineering and scientific disciplines.

Cryocoolers 10 is the premier archival publication of the latest advances and performance of small cryogenic refrigerators designed to provide localized cooling for military, space, semi-conductor, medical, computing, and high-temperature superconductor cryogenic applications in the 2-200 K temperature range. Composed of papers written by leading engineers and scientists in the field, Cryocoolers 10 reports the most recent advances in cryocooler development, contains extensive performance test results and comparisons, and relates the latest experience in integrating cryocoolers into advanced applications.

Proceedings of the 9th International Conference held in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire, June 25-27, 1996

The last two years have witnessed a continuation in the breakthrough shift toward pulse tube cryocoolers for long-life, high-reliability cryocooler applications. New this year are papers de scribing the development of very large pulse tube cryocoolers to provide up to 1500 watts of cooling for industrial applications such as cooling the superconducting magnets of Mag-lev trains, coolmg superconducting cables for the power mdustry, and liquefymg natural gas. Pulse tube coolers can be driven by several competing compressor technologies. One class of pulse tube coolers is referred to as "Stirling type" because they are based on the linear Oxford Stirling-cooler type compressor; these generally provide coolmg m the 30 to 100 K temperature range and operate ^t frequencies from 30 to 60 Hz. A second type of pulse tube cooler is the so-called "Gifford-McMahon type. " Pulse tube coolers of this type use a G-M type compressor and lower frequency operation (~1 Hz) to achieve temperatures in the 2 to 10 K temperature range. The third type of pulse tube cooler is driven by a thermoacoustic oscillator, a heat engine that functions well in remote environments where electricity is not readily available. All three types are described, and in total, nearly half of this proceedings covers new developments in the pulse tube arena. Complementing the work on low-temperature pulse tube and Gifford-McMahon cryocoolers is substantial continued progress on rare earth regenerator materials.

This book contains the proceedings of the 16th ICEC/ICMC Conference, held in Kitakyushu, Japan, on 20th-24th May 1996. The Proceedings are presented in three volumes containing a total of 476 papers from 1484 authors. The proceedings covers the main areas of: Large Scale Refrigeration. Cryocoolers. Cryogenic Engineering. Space Cryogenics. Application of Superconductivity. Oxide Superconductors. Metallic Superconductors. Metallic Materials. Non Metallic Materials.In addition there are seven Plenary Lectures covering such diverse topics as commercialization of high-Tc superconductors, the continuing development of the Maglev system in Japan, and the Large Hadron Collider project. The Proceedings comprise an excellent and up-to-date summary of research and development in the fields of Cryogenics and Superconductivity.

Composed of papers written by leading engineers and scientists in the field, this valuable collection reports the most recent advances in cryocooler development, contains extensive performance test results and comparisons, and relates the latest experience in integrating cryocoolers into advanced applications.

The last two years have witnessed a continuation in the breakthrough shift toward pulse tube cryocoolers for long-life, high-reliability cryocooler applications. One class of pulse tubes that has reached maturity is referred to as “Stirling type” because they are based on the linear Oxford Stirling-cooler type compressor; these generally provide cooling in the 30 to 100 K temperature range and operate at frequencies from 30 to 60 Hz. The other type of pulse tube cooler making great advances is the so-called “Gifford-McMahon type. ” Pulse tube coolers of this type use a G-M type compressor and lower frequency operation to achieve temperatures in the 2 to 10 K temperature range. Nearly a third of this proceedings covers these new developments in the pulse tube arena. Complementing the work on low-temperature pulse tubes is substantial continued progress on rare earth regenerator materials and Gifford-McMahon coolers. These technologies continue to make great progress in opening up the 2 - 4 K market. Also in the commercial sector, continued interest is being shown in the development of long-life, low-cost cryocoolers for the emerging high temperature superconductor electronics market, particularly the cellular telephone base-station market. At higher temperature levels, closed-cycle J-T or throttle-cycle refrigerators are taking advantage of mixed refrigerant gases to achieve low-cost cryocooler systems in the 65 to 80 K temperature range.

The number of satellite systems that require some form of cryogenic cooling has grown enormously over the last several years. With so many engineers, scientists, and technicians working on cryogenic systems for the first time in their careers, the need for a single resource that touched on all the technologies relevant to cryogenics was apparent.

The Hyatt Regency Hotel, Columbus, Ohio was the venue for the 1995 Cryogenic Engineering Conference. The meeting was held jointly with the International Cryogenic Materials Conference. Jim Peeples, of CVI, Inc., was conference chairman. Columbus is the home of the Battelle Memorial Institute, a pioneer in cryogenic materials development; the home of CVI, Inc., and Lake Shore Cryotronics, Inc., two leading manufacturers of cryogenic equipment; and it is the home of Ohio State University, where research on liquid helium has long been conducted. The program consisted of 315 CEC papers, nearly the same number as for CEC-91. This was the second largest number of papers ever submitted to the CEC. Of these, 252 papers are published here, in Volume 41 of Advances in Cryogenic Engineering. Once again the volume is published in two books. This volume includes a number of photographs taken during the awards lunch on July 20, 1995. Photographs have often been taken during the conferences, but they have never been used. The pictures are of the awardees, the conference chairs, and the organizers. They are distributed through out the books on pages that would otherwise have been blank. The pictures can be found on the following pages: 28, 232, 334, 536, 640, 826, 990, 1032, 1202, 1462,1682,1888, and 1994.

This book is the first in English being entirely dedicated to Miniature Joule-Thomson Cryocooling. The category of Joule-Thomson (JT) cryocoolers takes us back to the roots of cryogenics, in 1895, with figures like Linde and Hampson. The "cold finger" of these cryocoolers is compact, lacks moving parts, and sustains a large heat flux extraction at a steady temperature. Potentially, they cool down unbeatably fast. For example, cooling to below 100 K (minus 173 Celsius) might be accomplished within only a few seconds by liquefying argon. A level of about 120 K can be reached almost instantly with krypton. Indeed, the species of coolant plays a central role dictating the size, the intensity and the level of cryocooling. It is the JT effect that drives these cryocoolers and reflects the deviation of the "real" gas from the ideal gas properties. The nine chapters of the book are arranged in five parts. •The Common Principle of Cyrocoolers shared across the broad variety of cryocooler types •Theoretical Aspects: the JT effect and its inversion, cooling potential of coolants, the liquefaction process, sizing of heat exchangers, level of pressurization, discharge of pressure vessels • Practical Aspects: modes of operation (fast cooldown, continuous, multi-staging, hybrid cryocoolers), pressure sources, configuration, construction and technologies, flow adjustment, MEMS, open and closed cycle, cooldown process and similarity, transient behavior • Mixed Coolant cryocooling: theory, practice and applications • Special Topics: real gas choked flow rates, gas purity, clog formation, optimal fixed orifice, modeling, cryosurgical devices, warming by the inverse JT effect The theoretical aspects may be of interest not only to those working with cryocoolers but also for others with a general interest in "real" gas thermodynamics, such as, for example, the inversion of the JT effect in its differential and integral forms, and the exceptional behavior of the quantum gases. A detailed list of references for each chapter comprises a broad literature survey. It consists of more than 1,200 relevant publications and 450 related patents. The systematically organized content, arranged under a thorough hierarchy of headings, supported by 227 figures and 41 tables, and accompanied by various chronological notes of evolution, enables readers a friendly interaction with the book. Dr. Ben-Zion Maytal is a Senior Researcher at Rafael-Advanced Defense Systems, Ltd., and an Adjunct Senior Teaching Fellow at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel. Prof. John M. Pfotenhauer holds a joint appointment in the Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Physics at the University of Wisconsin - Madison.