The 400W at 1.8K Test Facility at CEA-Grenoble

A new test facility with a cooling capacity respectively of 400W at 1.8K or 800W at 4.5K, is now under nominal operation in SBT (Low Temperature Department) at CEA Grenoble. It has been recently used for thermohydraulic studies of two phase superfluid helium in autumn 2004.In the near future, this test bench will allow:- to test industrial components at 1.8K (magnets, cavities of accelerators)- to continue the present studies on thermohydraulics of two phase superfluid helium- to develop and simulate new cooling loops for ITER Cryogenics, and other applications such as high Reynolds number flowsThis new facility consists of a cold box connected to a warm compressor station (one subatmospheric oil ring pump in series with two screw compressors). The cold box, designed by AIR LIQUIDE, comprises two centrifugal cold compressors, a cold turbine, a wet piston expander, counter flow heat exchangers and two phase separators at 4.5K and 1.8K.The new facility uses a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) connected to a bus for the measurements. The design is modular and will allow the use of saturated fluid flow (two phase flow at 1.8K or 4.5K) or single phase fluid forced flow.Experimental results and cooling capacity in different operation modes are detailed.