Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2025 15:38:46 +0000
All;
We at UF have a campus wide recovery operation and fill our magnets on recovery.
Normal back pressure when not filling is 3-4 inches of water. We use magnehelic
pressure gauges on top of the transport dewar, on top of the magnet on the dog
bones, and on the wall where the boil off goes into our recovery system.
Typically during a fill, we push the helium from the transport dewar with ~ 40
inches of water, the magnet pressure is 15- 25, and the wall pressure is ~9-10.
We don’t cool the line outside of the magnet by first cooling the line
with the line on top of the fill port for around 5 minutes pushing with 20 -30
from the transport dewar. Once we are sure the line is Cryo-pumped we lower the
line halfway down for another couple of minutes then all the way down to 1
inch above the funnel.
We have been doing it this way for more than 30 years and as far as I know
UF has never had a quench due to filling. Enclosed are pictures of the 3 gauges.
My lab recovers %99 of delivered helium and we are charged ~$3.50 a liter for
recovered helium and market rates for helium lost. We have computerized helium
level meters designed and built by us on the transport dewars and natural gas
flow meters upstream of the system so we know how much is delivered and how
much is recovered. At the end of the fill the wall mounted gauge begins to
oscillate and the pressure rises slightly at which time I stop pushing helium
gas and I vent the transport dewar, pull up the delivery end to the top of
the filling port and then let the system settle down for 20-30 minutes until
all the ice on the dog bones and filling port has thawed. Everything about the
fill is gentle and not rushed. It usually takes me ~ 1.5 hours to complete
a 60 liter fill.
I only recommend using this method if and only if your bag room recovery
pump has the capacity to handle the high flow recovery. Ours is a high
capacity pump used to pump the gas across campus ~ 1/2 miles to physics.
Robert Harker
Engineer II
University of Florida
Dept. of Chemistry
Center for NMR Spectroscopy
125 Buckman Drive room 106 - office
126 Sisler Hall - shipping
Gainesville, Florida 32612-7200
352-328-5862 cell till 9 PM
352-392-4650 Labs
https://nmr.chem.ufl.edu/
rharker_at_ufl.edu
On Apr 18, 2025, at 1:54 PM, Fulton, Luke via groups.io wrote:
Hi all,
At ENC this year the AMMRL user group meeting held a breakout session focused
on Helium Recovery. It was mostly sharing anecdotes and experiences from the
lab with each other. I've compiled and attached summary notes from the discussion.
It's probably most useful for managers that don't have recovery of their own
but are considering it. Those labs with recovery systems already will probably
obtain more relevant specifics by asking the community directly.
Kind regards,
Luke
Luke Fulton, PhD
CHEM BLDG R003
NMR Core Facility Director
Unit 3060
COR2E & Department of Chemistry
55 N Eagleville Road
University of Connecticut
Storrs, CT 06279
email: fko24003_at_uconn.edu
mobile: (603) 953-5275
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