The first and basic cause of the failure of concrete is repeated freezing (thawing) of moisture contained in the pores, microcracks, and cavities of the concrete. On transition to ice, water existing in the free state in cracks increases in volume, expanding the recess in which freezing occurs. A reduction in strength below the initial value is to be expected and further cycle of freezing and t...

The surface of ice exhibits the swath of phase-transition phenomena common to all materials and as such it acts as an ideal test bed of both theory and experiment. It is readily available, transparent, optically birefringent, and probing it in the laboratory does not require cryogenics or ultrahigh vacuum apparatus. Systematic study reveals the range of critical phenomena, equilibrium and noneq...

We describe the Boomerang North America (BNA) instrument, a balloonborne bolometric radiometer designed to map the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation with 0.3 resolution over a significant portion of the sky. This receiver employs new technologies in bolometers, readout electronics, millimeterwave optics and filters, cryogenics, scan and attitude reconstruction. All these subsystems ar...

The LHC Conceptual Design Report issued on 20th October 1995 [1] introduced significant changes to some fundamental features of the LHC standard half-cell, composed of one quadrupole, 3 dipoles and a set of corrector magnets. A separate cryogenic distribution line has been adopted containing most of the distribution lines previously installed inside the main cryostat. The dipole length has been...

This work describes the design and integration of a lock-in amplifier with a terahertz detector array. Research in the terahertz region, which lies between the microwave and infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, has been on the rise due to its potential applications as a biologically-safe replacement for X-Ray imaging and other non-invasive applications such as spectroscopy. Cryogen...

A thermal infrared grating spectrometer was developed for field studies in the earth sciences. The design is based on a reflection grating and a 60-element HgCdTe detector array. The useful spectral range of the instrument covers 7.9-11.3 pm with a Nyquist limited resolution of 0.16 pm. The instrument averages over a 12" field of view and compares the exitance of the target to that of an intern...

The Interaction Region of the International Linear Collider [1] is based on two experimental detectors working in a push-pull mode. A time efficient implementation of this model sets specific requirements and challenges for many detector and machine systems, in particular the IR magnets, the cryogenics and the alignment system, the beamline shielding, the detector design and the overall integra...

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is being developed as a heavy vehicle fuel. The reason for developing LNG is to reduce our dependency on imported oil by eliminating technical and costs barriers associated with its usage. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has a program, currently in its third year, to develop and advance costeffective technologies for operating and refueling natural gas–fueled hea...