The more I learn about this the more questions I wind up having. They're magnets powered by helium? Wild!
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They are superconducting magnets that have to be kept cold, or they stop superconducting. Much of the enclosure is a giant thermos bottle.
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It usually wouldn't automatically quench the magnet, but in these cases someone probably should have pressed the big red "oh shit" button that /does/ quench the magnet.
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by "boiled off instantly" you mean explosion, right? That's at least what happens with superconductors and liquid helium. Momentary loss of superconductivity from eddy currents -> instantaneous heat -> explosion of helium coolant
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There's a pressure relief valve so there's dramatic noise and the room instantly fills with fog
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That is fascinating! Thank you!
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When I interned at a medical imaging company, another intern set the (presumably forever) high score for screwups by taking the metal cart into the MRI test chamber. After that, flushing a couple thousand dollars of reagent by accident was... Tame.
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Pretty much. Not necessarily automatic, and off by an order of magnitude or two in costs, though.
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It’s a lot of helium, and you can’t just reload it and start back up quickly.
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