There are numerous potential commercial applications for zero-boil-off technology. It has been pointed out, that ZBO would be advantageous for systems used to cool superconducting power lines, superconducting magnets for power generation and energy storage, high temperature superconducting filters for cellular telephone base stations, and MRI magnets and SQUID magnetometers for heart and brain studies. In each of these applications, cryocooler reliability is an issue. Using a system cooled by a ZBO dewar addresses the reliability issue by ensuring that cooling liquid is always present. In the event of a cooler failure, the stored liquid provides a buffer i.e., a period of time during which the cooler may be repaired, or at worst the dewar refilled. It seems, then, that there exists a large potential market for ZBO technology and hence the PTC/IC proposed here.
There are many potential NASA applications for the Integrated Circulator(IC). A pulse tube cooler with an IC (PTC/IC) can provide active shielding and re-liquefaction for zero-boil-off (ZBO) dewars. For example, the manned Mars mission, which requires the in-situ manufacture of propellant, will require the capability to store seed hydrogen, as well as, liquid oxygen and liquid methane for substantial periods of time. NASA also has terrestrial applications for zero-boil-off technology, including cryogenic propellant preservation. Other applications are cooling large deployable telescopes and multiple distributed loads such as CCD cameras
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