# Presentation: 362497

## Argon

- Refrigeration
- Supply
- Purity

- FLARE Cryogenics, RLSchmitt

- 4/5/2005

## Argon Refrigeration

- Heat load summary
- LN circulation
- LN supply

- FLARE Cryogenics, RLSchmitt

- 4/5/2005

## Heat Load Summary

- Tank heat load 0.05%/day		47kW
- Flash during filling, assuming
- 5 psig supply				 6kW
- Vapor displaced during filling	1.5 kW
- Total with 1.25 factor			68 kW

- FLARE Cryogenics, RLSchmitt

- 4/5/2005

## LN Supply Perspective

- Flare Usage 34 tons/day
- Fermilab usage 45 to 78 tons/day
- CHL liquefier 100 ton/day
- 12 trucks or 5 railcars per week
- LN cost at Fermilab $62/ton
- 2002 budget price for 100 ton/day liquefier $2.9 million

- FLARE Cryogenics, RLSchmitt

- 4/5/2005

## Nitrogen Circulation

- Condensers inside tank to minimize argon handling
- Redundant pumps, heat exchangers, etc.
- Nothing extraordinary
- Needs further development to improve cost estimate
- Present estimate $460k

- FLARE Cryogenics, RLSchmitt

- 4/5/2005

## LN Supply Tasks

- Five liquefier vendors contacted recently
- Failures
- Power failures
- Mechanical breakdowns
- LN leak inside detector tank
- Supply interruptions
- Detector Tank loses 25 tons argon/day without cooling
- Zero backflow vent system needed

- FLARE Cryogenics, RLSchmitt

- 4/5/2005

## Argon Supply

- Praxiar quotation in January 2004
- $37 million, truck delivery, ~1ppm
- RR cars would be less expensive
- Oxygen concentration is negotiable, 1ppm is proven without extraordinary effort
- Could use multiple suppliers

- FLARE Cryogenics, RLSchmitt

- 4/5/2005

## Argon Receiving

- Procedure proven at Dzero, NWA and E706
- Connect to truck
- Test carefully, accept or reject
- Testing includes oxygen concentration, electron lifetime, possibly other tests
- Pump through purifier into intermediate tank
- Test and pump into detector tank

- FLARE Cryogenics, RLSchmitt

- 4/5/2005

## Receiving Further Development

- Failure scenarios
- Adding contaminated delivery to main tank
- Spill during connection
- Further development
- Piping Schematic
- Instrumentation requirements
- Estimated time to connect and test

- FLARE Cryogenics, RLSchmitt

- 4/5/2005

## Sources of impurity

- Argon Supply
- Surfaces
- Tank shell
- Cable insulation
- Other material
- Leaks and permeation
- Mechanical seals
- Dead volumes

- FLARE Cryogenics, RLSchmitt

- 4/5/2005

## Argon Purifiers

- Purifying equipment would probably run for the life of the project as well as during filling
- ICARUS used Messer Oxisorb, proprietary regeneration
- Air Liquide offers a packaged liquid purifier, $400k.  Regeneration would consume $800k of argon during filling.  Possibly can recover most of it.
- Praxair offers gas purifier for $600k
- Earnhart(Trigon) offers regenerable adsorbent
- All of these should be evaluated further

- FLARE Cryogenics, RLSchmitt

- 4/5/2005

## High Purity Specifications 

- Rough tank purging
- High capacity intermediate system?
- Further purging?
- High purity system with high regeneration?
- Specification for leak testing
- Specification for tank surfaces, tank cleaning, procedures during detector construction, cable insulation
- Specification for all argon handling equipment and piping
- Further development needed

- FLARE Cryogenics, RLSchmitt

- 4/5/2005

## Purification Testing

- Testing is needed to prove high purity can be achieved without evacuation and with reasonable fabrication requirements
- Outgassing in vacuum has been studied, but how is the rate affected by an Argon atmosphere or temperature?
- Testing can be done on a reasonable scale

- FLARE Cryogenics, RLSchmitt

- 4/5/2005

## Effort estimates

- Purity issues, a man-year of process engineering, plus technician and drafting support
- M&S budget to avoid re-inventing parts that are commercially available, $100k
- Refrigeration and Supply, two man-months of engineering to improve cost estimate

- FLARE Cryogenics, RLSchmitt

- 4/5/2005