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Abstract One of the main limitations of experimental throughput in high temperature neutron experiments is the lengthy cooldown time of the test furnace. Neutron furnaces typically rely on radiation-based cooling under vacuum to reach safe opening temperatures ( 100 °C) to change test samples. The lengthy cooldown, often taking 2–3 times longer than the test itself, is due to the furnace design optimized for minimizing heat loss. A rapid cooling technology for neutron furnaces is presented, where closed-loop circulation of low-pressure helium is utilized. The new cooling technology reduces the most impactful 500–100°C cooldown phase from over 2 hours down to as low as 5 minutes for low thermal mass cases with no sample. The gas mass flowrate had the dominant impact on cooling time, while the system pressure had negligible effects.
Adhikari et al. (Mon,) studied this question.