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The nucleus of the group was the well established NBS Cryogenic Physics Section which had a forty-five year heritage in low temperature reseach and development. At the request of the US Atomic Energy Commission, the design and construction of a large hydrogen liquifier was commenced and in late 1951 the group moved to Boulder. In the mid-fifties the technical programme gained new emphasis and a change in technical direction. With the start of the US Space Programme the Laboratories became heavily involved in space research including fluid properties of spacecraft propellents, properties of materials, and system design.
The work of the Boulder Laboratories is now divided into seven sections -properties of solids, properties of fluids, systems, metrology, cryoelectronics, the Data Center, and technical services.
The 'solids' section investigates the physical, electrical, and thermal properties of materials. A recent research programme measured the mechanical and electrical properties of pure aluminium. A survey on the physical properties of polymers has also been recently completed. Current research projects include a study of pure metals in liquid helium and a study of the long-term properties of aluminium and copper at low temperatures. Also this department is co-operating with the Smithsonian Institute to discover the thermal changes undergone by meteorites travelling through space. These thermal changes produce appropriate changes in the crystal structure of the meteorites.
The 'fluids' section was originally started to measure the properties of spacecraft propellents. Since then it has measured and correlated a vast range of thermodynamic, electromagnetic, and transport properties, such as PVT data, specific heat, thermal conductivity, sound velocity, and viscosity for a variety of fluids -liquid hydrogen,
๐ SIMILAR VOLUMES
During the war, radio amateurs of the United States participated in three observing projects sponsored by the Bureau, the object of which was to obtain basic data urgently needed in making radio propagation predictions for the Allied Armed Forces. The first two projects called NBS-ARRL projects I an