What Physics Has To Do With It - Hyvac Vacuum Fittings
May 15th 2018
A vacuum and vacuum chamber has proven to be a very crucial part of physics and scientific exploration over the last couple of decades — we’ve seen the importance of a particle accelerator such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN as they continue to discover and demystify particles.
At Hyvac, we manufacture American-made, eco-friendly (reusable) vacuum fittings to help spur scientific exploration by equipping scientists and labs with high-quality vacuum parts that they can rely on. Check out our vast selection of entering rings, port covers, weld fittings, hose fittings, npt adapters, elbow fittings, vacuum nipples, bellows, instrument adapters, vacuum clamps, vacuum fittings, vacuum parts, nw25, nw40, nw50, nw16, o-rings, and vacuum bellows. Follow along with this post as we look at what vacuums have to to with physics.
How Does a Vacuum Relate to Science?
A vacuum is hugely important to scientific experiments and furthering our understanding of the universe! To understand why our vacuum parts are important, you first have to understand the intricacies of a vacuum.
So, what is a vacuum?
A vacuum is a space devoid of matter, an enclosed area free of air or any other gases. A great example of the perfect vacuum is interstellar space. A scientific vacuum has nothing to do with the “sucking” process as most think, but it is more about random collisions and the pressures involved.
How vacuum parts and pieces are implemented
Vacuum technology is referenced to all physical measurements and processes fulfilled in conditions below-normal atmospheric pressure. An experiment is conducted under a vacuum in the following scenarios:
A vacuum serving as a source of pressure - In this scenario, a low-grade vacuum is utilized for as a source of low-pressure to produce a suction-like result to cause the same pressure that is produced at the other end.
- Air avoidance - Vacuum technology is applied and setup to avoid any undesirable physical or chemical property such as oxidation or conduction.
- Molecular and atomic beam applications - It is understood that the distance a molecular or atomic particle can travel is dependent on the space between the other molecule in its surroundings, so a vacuum is needed to create a wider gap that a particle must travel before a collision with another particle occurs — thus moving particles while avoiding collisions towards the target and source.
- Impact the number of particle impacts per second - When the number of particles per second are decreased, it directly effects and reduces the contamination of prepared surfaces in a vacuum.
- Reduce gas load - To reduce gas load is to enhance the base vacuum in the experiment, so grinding, polishing, or modifying a chemical surface can reduce the outgassing while improving the conditions.
Our vacuum fittings and pieces play a crucial role in maintaining vacuum conditions, because one faulty piece or one that doesn’t fit perfectly can affect the pressure and throw off the whole experiment.
A Vacuum in Real Life: The Large Hadron Collider (LHC)
We wrote extensively on the LHC in a previous post, and we’ll touch more on the vacuum aspect that it has.
The LHC is the largest operational vacuum system in the world and operates on different pressure levels and implements a multitude of vacuum technologies that we touched upon above. It boasts a total of 104 kilometers (roughly 64 miles) under vacuum conditions and uses over 250,000 welded joints and 18,000 vacuum seals!
The LHC vacuum is unique because it actually has three different vacuum structures including:
- A vacuum line for insulating the helium line.
- A vacuum for the beam pipes.
- A vacuum that insulates the cryogenically cooled magnets.
The beams in the LHC have to travel in a vacuum as void as interstellar space to avoid colliding with gas molecules, however, the helium and magnets must use a different kind of vacuum, one that insulates and reduces the amount of heat that comes from the surrounding environment.
The LHC is an extremely intricate and vast particle accelerator that uses three vacuums and implements a large amount of vacuum fittings to fuel the whole process.
Vacuums are particularly important to physics because of the technologies they support and the conditions they create. We’ve seen first hand how vacuum parts directly impact scientific research and spawn new discoveries in physics.