Skip to main content

H-Rays: Mounting the Dewar in the Magnet

I'm deeper into the planning for this summer's experimental search for H-Rays[1].  I've abandoned my previous superconducting magnet designs in favor of a much simpler pre-existing yoke magnet that's sitting out in the hallway.



The pole pieces are in the center of the picture and are retractable using the knobs on the edges of the magnet.  The resulting gap between the pole pieces is where the Dewar will sit,see the picture below:



The Dewar sitting between the pole pieces has created a new theoretical issue.  It's only theoretical for the moment though.  Once we have numbers to go with the theory, we'll find out if our Dewar will wind up looking like this[3][4]:



As +Peter Terren can tell you, rapidly changing magnetic fields like we hope to generate for quenching our superconducting sample will cause Lenz's law eddy currents that create opposing magnetic fields and resulting forces applied to the surfaces that contain the conductors.  What's an aluminum can got to do with a liquid helium Dewar you ask?  The inner jacket of the Dewar is coated with a reflective layer of silver to help with insulation.  If you've got an old coffee Thermos, look inside and you'll see the same thing.  The concern is that the silvered layer will carry induced currents just like the aluminum cans above and create stresses on the glass Dewar.  Our saving grace, hopefully, is that our magnetic field isn't too large and we just won't be able to move it too quickly given the hugely inductive iron magnet pictured above.  That's also one of our problems because we need a quick quench.  Tradeoffs.  Expect to see some back of the envelope calculations here soon.  In the mean time, does anyone know of a completely clear glass Dewar like the one shown below in this classic '60s liquid helium demo movie from Alfred Leitner[4]?



References:
1.  http://copaseticflow.blogspot.com/2013/03/open-science-is-cool-in-concept-but.html

2.  AJP can crushing article, (sadly not open access)
http://scitation.aip.org/content/aapt/journal/ajp/62/1/10.1119/1.17739

3.  Sites addressing can crushing ala magnetic fields
The DeVry IEEE demo site
http://members.tripod.com/extreme_skier/cancrusher/

Tesla DownUnder
http://tesladownunder.com/Links.htm#Tesla Links

(Home of +Richard Green and previously +Jonah Miller), CU can crushing
http://physicslearning.colorado.edu/ldl/demo5K20.65

4.  Liquid helium demo
http://youtu.be/7U4hQ_Y9_Jk?t=3m27s


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

More Cowbell! Record Production using Google Forms and Charts

First, the what : This article shows how to embed a new Google Form into any web page. To demonstrate ths, a chart and form that allow blog readers to control the recording levels of each instrument in Blue Oyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" is used. HTML code from the Google version of the form included on this page is shown and the parts that need to be modified are highlighted. Next, the why : Google recently released an e-mail form feature that allows users of Google Documents to create an e-mail a form that automatically places each user's input into an associated spreadsheet. As it turns out, with a little bit of work, the forms that are created by Google Docs can be embedded into any web page. Now, The Goods: Click on the instrument you want turned up, click the submit button and then refresh the page. Through the magic of Google Forms as soon as you click on submit and refresh this web page, the data chart will update immediately. Turn up the:

Cool Math Tricks: Deriving the Divergence, (Del or Nabla) into New (Cylindrical) Coordinate Systems

Now available as a Kindle ebook for 99 cents ! Get a spiffy ebook, and fund more physics The following is a pretty lengthy procedure, but converting the divergence, (nabla, del) operator between coordinate systems comes up pretty often. While there are tables for converting between common coordinate systems , there seem to be fewer explanations of the procedure for deriving the conversion, so here goes! What do we actually want? To convert the Cartesian nabla to the nabla for another coordinate system, say… cylindrical coordinates. What we’ll need: 1. The Cartesian Nabla: 2. A set of equations relating the Cartesian coordinates to cylindrical coordinates: 3. A set of equations relating the Cartesian basis vectors to the basis vectors of the new coordinate system: How to do it: Use the chain rule for differentiation to convert the derivatives with respect to the Cartesian variables to derivatives with respect to the cylindrical variables. The chain

The Valentine's Day Magnetic Monopole

There's an assymetry to the form of the two Maxwell's equations shown in picture 1.  While the divergence of the electric field is proportional to the electric charge density at a given point, the divergence of the magnetic field is equal to zero.  This is typically explained in the following way.  While we know that electrons, the fundamental electric charge carriers exist, evidence seems to indicate that magnetic monopoles, the particles that would carry magnetic 'charge', either don't exist, or, the energies required to create them are so high that they are exceedingly rare.  That doesn't stop us from looking for them though! Keeping with the theme of Fairbank[1] and his academic progeny over the semester break, today's post is about the discovery of a magnetic monopole candidate event by one of the Fairbank's graduate students, Blas Cabrera[2].  Cabrera was utilizing a loop type of magnetic monopole detector.  Its operation is in concept very sim