Wonders of Helium!

[P4-630]

Helium is an amazing material- Discuss!

Who knew?

• The Federal Helium Reserve, operated by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, is near Amarillo, Texas. It holds over 40 percent of the helium used annually in the United States.
• Helium is a noble gas, a group of nonreactive and stable gases that also include neon, argon, krypton, xenon and radon.
• As of 2010, it took 300,000 cubic feet of helium to float the 15 character balloons in that year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, the equivalent volume of 2.2 million gallons of milk.
• Helium on Earth is formed when radioactive elements in the crust decay, producing positively charged particles called alpha particles. When these alpha particles attract a couple of electrons, the result is a helium atom.
• No one has ever successfully made helium combine with another element to create a compound, according to the Jefferson Lab. It's just that inert.

Current research

Helium is helping scientists peer past the limits of their knowledge about physics and chemistry, thanks to its convenient ability to become a superfluid with relative ease.

Superfluids are liquids that behave as if they have no viscosity, or resistance to flow. "When atoms come together in a superfluid state, they all of the sudden behave as one object," said Oliver Gessner, a senior scientist at the Ultrafast X-ray Science Laboratory at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, and one of the lead researchers on a project that delved into superfluid helium and observed some very bizarre behavior.

Gessner and his colleagues were looking to push the limits of fundamental physics by testing the behavior of superfluid flows under conditions never studied before. They turned to helium because this element's atoms come together into a superfluid state at temperatures that are relatively easy to generate, Gessner told Live Science — about 2 Kelvin, or minus 456 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 271 degrees Celsius). Other elements would freeze solid at those temperatures, Gessner said.

The researchers squirted the liquid into a vacuum chamber through a nozzle only 5 microns wide, about the same diameter as a red blood cell. The tiny droplets exist for mere milliseconds as they fly across the chamber at about 655 feet (200 meters) per second, Gessner said.

Incredibly, using an X-ray free-electron laser, the scientists are able to observe these moving targets by shining pulses of light on them midair. They discovered that the droplets indeed behave like superfluids.

From a distance, the droplets' behavior looks almost banal. They rotate and compress slightly, going from spherical to a little bit flattened, just as a droplet of regular rotating liquid might do. But simultaneously, Gessner said, these droplets are behaving according to the rules of quantum physics, which deal with the behavior of nano-sized opbjects. Inside each droplet is a grid of tornado-like vortices. The sum of the rotation of these infinitesimally small tornadoes is what drives the rotation of the entire droplets, Gessner said.

"At the same time that it behaves, in a way, like a classical liquid, on a microscopic scale, it shows clear quantum behavior," he said.

The study, published in August 2014 in the journal Science, studied the helium superfluid droplets as they spun at speeds 100,000 times faster than any ever studied before in the laboratory. Those blistering speeds are important for pushing physics understanding, Gessner said.

"If you find that a certain law of physics is valid for a certain speed or a certain size of object, is it also valid for something that is 100,000 times bigger or 100,000 times faster?" he said. The equivalent might be building a sandcastle a meter, or about three feet tall, and then testing to find out if you can use the same design principles to build a sandcastle 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, tall, Gessner said.

The helium superfluid droplets still contain mysteries, including the origin of the strange grid of vortices. Researchers now know that the tiny nozzle method works to create these rotating droplets, but not why.

"One aspect we haven't touched on at all in the last study is where does this vorticity actually come from, and how could we eventually maybe control it?" Gessner said.

https://www.livescience.com/28552-facts-about-helium.html


Helium Hard Drives

Why Helium?
Helium has the lowest density and lowest specific heat of all nonflammable substances. These two characteristics make helium the gas of choice for many specialized uses. Its primary use is as a coolant in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines. That use has created a strong demand for a natural gas byproduct that can be produced in just a few parts of the world with unusual geologic conditions.

Now another use could begin to consume this rare gas even faster. Western Digital has produced the first computer hard drive sealed in a helium atmosphere. The drive was designed for use in data centers where hundreds or thousands of computers are operating.

Why helium? Helium has just 1/7 the density of air. This sealed helium drive produces less air turbulence, which in turn saves power consumption, produces less heat, produces fewer vibrations, makes less noise, allows greater drive capacity, and results in a much lower total cost of operation. The drives are expensive to manufacture, but that cost is recovered in energy savings and performance gains.

Uses of helium: Relative amounts of helium consumed by various uses in the United States. How will the consumption of helium for hard drives fit into this mix? Graph by Geology.com using data from USGS.

Lower Turbulence
Compared to air, helium's lower density allows the drive to spin with much less turbulence. The lower level of turbulence allows the motor to turn the drive with a power consumption savings of 23%. And, the lower level of turbulence allows seven platters to operate in a one-inch-high drive, instead of five. This increases the storage capacity of the drive by 50 percent - from 4 TB to 6 TB - and increases the storage capacity of a server and its weight per TB.

Less Noise
The lower level of air turbulence inside of the drive will reduce the amount of vibration produced by the spinning platters. The lower vibration level has been found to reduce the amount of noise produced by the drive by about 30%.

Related: Helium: A Rare Natural Gas Byproduct

Less Heat
The lower turbulence within the drive means there is less friction produced between air molecules. This allows the drive to operate at a temperature that is about 4 degrees Celsius cooler within the drive. This means that the drive will shed less heat into the data center and lower the amount of air conditioning required - which results in another way to save power.

The Fugitive Gas Challenge
Producing a hard drive sealed in a helium environment was an enormous challenge. Why? Helium atoms are so small that they can seep through almost any material. Creating a case that will contain helium over a long period of time was the most difficult part of producing the drive - and the reason why helium drives did not go into use a long time ago.

The tightly-sealed case produces a few more advantages. Humidity, dust and other contaminants are kept out. This is expected to reduce drive failure rates and increase the average life expectancy of the helium drive.

The helium hard drive is an example of how using special materials creates special challenges but can result in exceptional savings.

A copy of the Western Digital (HGST) product announcement can be obtained here.

Contributor: Hobart King

http://geology.com/stories/13/new-uses-of-helium/

Some Vids

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/wonders-of-helium.235393/#post-3697227

 

[Norton]

Ok sorry about that then, that wasn't my intention, you may remove it if you want to.

Helium and Helium technology is a great topic and I believe it would make a really good thread for discussion.

Would be interested to see where you can go with it...

 

[dorsetknob]

Some Vids

 

[Norton]

Ok sorry about that then, that wasn't my intention, you may remove it if you want to.

Made an edit to your OP- take a look.

Still think this would be a great thread here.

 

[dorsetknob]

Helium Abused

 

[OneMoar]

I don't know how they would ever test head--replacement these drives don't function at all without the helium to keep the heads afloat and reduce drag

 

[jaggerwild]

They have used it also to over clock CPU'S with.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Helium drives = limited lifetime. Will they last 5? 10 years?

 

[OneMoar]

assuming you can seal them and don't get nuts with the data density helium drives should last longer then conventional

 

[metalslaw]

I think the major problem with Helium is that it's a non renewable resource.

We will run out of helium sooner rather than later this century. And that doesn't bode well for the future when we will see 8 billion on the planet by 2030, and an escalating oil price that is then set to rise out of control at some point near then.

There are also other non-renewable's we will run out of as well this century.

Will our children of the future look back at our generation one day, and just shake their heads in disbelief?

Anyway, helium has some great uses, such as in MRI machines. At some point the reserves will dwindle, and price will rise, and remaining reserves will be prioritised. So at least it will still be available for the most important stuff for a long time to come. It will be become unavailable to the consumer for things such as party balloons, and funny voices. But it's lifetime is still based on economics, and availability.

Really, we need to go off planet, find some more reserves of the non-renewables we are running out of, then ship them back to planet earth.

We don't need vast quantities of anything really, just enough for us to live through each century in a modicum of comfort. But, I doubt we will get there before the reserves of each resource start running out, and a major GFC happens. It will probably be centuries into the future before we embark on journeys through our solar system in search of resources. But, I hope I'm wrong, and we figure out we are on the wrong path, and rectify our course before anything major happens.

 

[Norton]

Check out Helium as a superfluid:

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

I dont think has been mentioned before but this news from last year is important to us all.


A research group from Oxford and Durham universities, working with Norway-headquartered helium exploration company Helium One, has developed a brand new exploration approach. The first use of this method has resulted in the discovery of a world-class helium gas field in Tanzania..

Global consumption of helium is about 8 BCf per year and the United States Federal Helium Reserve, which is the world’s largest supplier, has a current reserve of just 24.2 BCf. Experts have calculated a probable resource of 54 Billion Cubic Feet (BCf) in just one part of the rift valley.

http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2016-06-28-huge-helium-discovery-life-saving-find

 

[dorsetknob]

Empty and Dumped in the Street
I will have to ghetto mod it into something usefull

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

How many KG is printed on the cylinder?

 

[dorsetknob]

How many KG is printed on the cylinder?

0.25 Cubic metre

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Can you take a pic of the whole label please.

 

[dorsetknob]

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

I expect you would get a deposit if you could return it.

edit

turns out they are just regular scrap once they are used,

 

[dorsetknob]

non returnable please dispose of at your local recycle center made from mild Steel

 

[DRDNA]

Empty and Dumped in the Street
I will have to ghetto mod it into something usefull

Maybe you could cut it in half put hinges on it and some legs and use it for a little cooking grill and drink Helium infused bear.

 

[R-T-B]

Helium infused bear.

What have you done?

 

[EarthDog]

They have used it also to over clock CPU'S with.

Liquid helium... not the gas.

 

[R-T-B]

Liquid helium... not the gas.

We are discussing all of it.

 

[EarthDog]

Sorry, didnt see liquid mentioned prior to that gigantic quote in the first post. I must have missed it.

 

[R-T-B]

Sorry, didnt see liquid mentioned prior to that gigantic quote in the first post. I must have missed it.

Well no one limited it to gas in the first place either.