Acknowledgement
Editor biographies
Biographies of contributors
List of contributors
1 Fundamentals of cryogenics
2 What is cryogenics?-UK perspective and brief history
3 Cryostat design
4 Closed cycle refrigerators
5 Very low temperature techniques
6 Cryogenics in particle accelerators and fusion reactors
7 Propulsion, energy storage and renewables
8 Life science and healthcare
9 Industrial applications

Cryogenics - the science that addresses the production, effects and maintenance of very low temperatures - underpins a range of enabling technologies that impact our daily lives in ways that are not immediately apparent. As such, cryogenic systems play that enabling role across many diverse sectors - food processing, healthcare, energy, science and space - with new applications being added via expanding market penetration of superconducting and quantum technologies.

Current specialist textbooks are skewed towards laboratory-based applications of cryogenics in frontline scientific research. As a consequence, analysis and guidance is lacking when it comes to the real-world deployment of cryogenic technologies in an industrial/commercial context. This book addresses that user need by providing a practical, hands-on reference source to promote exploitation and innovation in all areas of cryogenic science and technology. The book is particularly designed to aid those practitioners coming newly into Cryogenics, giving them a context and signposts for where to go for further information. It spans a broad range of applications and undoubtedly will contain new information useful to those already involved with Cryogenics.

Tom Bradshaw was head of the Cryogenics and Magnetics Group at the STFC, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, where he worked on the development of closed-cycle coolers for space applications and the development of superconducting magnets for particle physics and light sources. He was a co-investigator on the Planck spacecraft project and is the author of many academic papers. He edited the proceedings of the ICEC27-ICMC2018 conference (published in the IOPP Conference Series earlier this year). He is also Chief Scientific Officer and Director of Bennamann Limited, which uses methane technology to improve the economics of small dairy farms.

Beth Evans is Cryogenics Group Leader at the Joint European Torus (JET) - Culham Centre for Fusion Energy. She has previously worked on cryogenic system development at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, in industry and at the CERN particle physics laboratory in Geneva. Beth is a member of the executive committee of the British Cryogenics Council, a professional association for scientists, technologists, engineers and business executives working in industry, academia and government agencies.

John Vandore studied Engineering and Business, pursuing a career in Sales and Management in the automotive and flow-control industries, running companies in the UK and US involved in highly engineered products, many for cryogenic applications. John has recently been promoting cryogenics as an enabling technology and coordinating the British Cryogenic Cluster network. John is a member of the executive committee of the British Cryogenics Council.