Cryogenic chamber design improved with 3D printing
Cryogenic chamber design improved with 3D printing lead image
Cryogenic testing chambers are essential for studying materials by cooling them to extremely low temperatures. However, existing cryogenic chambers take a very long time to reach the target temperature, cannot go below a certain threshold, and need complicated insulation.
Vaught et al. used 3D-printed materials to design a cryogenic testing chamber that is straightforward to manufacture. It also cools more quickly than existing designs, reaching -150 degrees Celsius in 149 seconds. Their research shows both the utility of 3D printed plastic in cryogenic environments and the ability of iterative manufacturing to improve on current technology.
“We decided to build this testing chamber because current equipment was inadequate for the testing we needed to perform,” said author Andreas Polycarpou. “Consumer-grade 3D printing was selected because we could produce and test new designs directly in the lab, which took our turnaround time on design improvements from days to hours.”
The researchers found consumer-grade polylactic acid (PLA) plastic was durable enough to withstand uncontrolled cryogenic exposure, and the tensile strength increased 2.5 times when submerged in liquid nitrogen. This durability allowed the team to craft improvements to the chamber design, such as independent upper and lower channels to direct the cryogen through the chamber and an anti-splash collar to keep flow away from the sample and ensure dry testing conditions.
The researchers plan to improve the versatility of their 3D-printed components.
“PLA is available with many different fillers, and a variant that is filled with conductive particles may be better at carrying heat,” said Polycarpou. “This would allow for direct 3D printing of portions of the cryogenic testing chamber that currently must be made from metal.”
Source: “Development of a controlled-atmosphere, rapid-cooling cryogenic chamber for tribological and mechanical testing,” by Louis Vaught, Vasilis Tsigkis, and Andreas A. Polycarpou, Review of Scientific Instruments (2022). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0102702 .
