Arduino-Based Novel Hardware Design for Liquid Helium Level Measurement.

Area of Science:

• Cryogenics and Superconductivity
• Experimental Physics
• Instrumentation and Measurement

Background:

• Liquid helium (LHe) is a critical cryogen for superconductivity and low-temperature experiments.
• Current LHe level detection relies on manually sensing thermoacoustic oscillations within a capillary tube.
• Existing methods are labor-intensive and may lack precision.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a novel hardware design for reliable identification of thermoacoustic oscillations in LHe.
• To create an automated approach for quantifying oscillation changes to measure LHe levels.
• To establish a cost-effective alternative to conventional superconducting LHe level sensors.

Main Methods:

• Implementation of an accelerometer-based hardware system controlled by an Arduino microcontroller.
• Development of an automated algorithm to analyze the rate of change in thermoacoustic oscillations.
• Experimental validation on 120 L and 100 L Dewars.

Main Results:

• The proposed system reliably detects and quantifies thermoacoustic oscillations for LHe level measurement.
• Mean error in LHe level measurement was less than 1 cm compared to a niobium-titanium sensor.
• Successful trials demonstrated the system's efficacy in practical LHe monitoring.

Conclusions:

• The novel automated system provides accurate and reliable liquid helium level sensing.
• This method presents a significant cost-effective alternative to existing superconducting level sensors.
• The technology is suitable for routine monitoring in low-temperature applications.