NIST posts online database of cryogenic materials
properties
In response to numerous inquiries from academia, industry, and other
government labs, the National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST) recently published a new database on the properties of solid
materials at temperatures ranging from cryogenic (as low as 4 K, which
is -269 degrees C or -452 degrees F) to room temperature. Officially
known as NIST Standard Reference Data Database #152, the Cryogenic
Materials Properties Database is available online, free of charge. It is
also a work in progress, with new materials and properties added as data
become available.
Cryogenic temperatures place extreme
demands on materials. The properties data have been collected by various
organizations over many years, published in various formats such as
internal reports, and often have not been publicly available. NIST researchers located the data, evaluated and validated it, resolved any
conflicts resulting from different test methods and sources, then
re-plotted and correlated the data over a wide temperature range using
standardized equations.
The database covers a wide range of materials from
traditional engineering stainless steels to fiberglass epoxy (found in
magnetic resonance imaging systems, for example), exotic regenerator
materials (used in cryogenic refrigerators), and Kevlar (may be
combined with carbon fibers in containers used in space). The
materials might be used in medicine (e.g., cryosurgery), energy
applications (e.g., storage of liquid methane or liquid natural gas),
electronics (e.g., superconducting microwave filters for cellular
phones), transportation (e.g., liquid hydrogen fuel storage), space
exploration (e.g., fuel storage), environmental research (e.g.,
thermal mapping and imaging of oceans), weather forecasting (e.g.,
infrared thermal imaging of the atmosphere) and defense (e.g.,
infrared guidance systems).
