The European Graduate Course in Cryogenics hosted at CERN.

The “liquid helium” week of the European Graduate Course in Cryogenics was held at CERN from 30 August to 3 September 2010. This course scheduled annually since 2008 is a common teaching project of the Universities of Technology of Dresden, Wroclaw and Trondheim. It is focused on liquid natural gas, hydrogen and helium cryogenics. Attending students were carefully selected, and will take an examination giving ECTS credits for their academic curriculum.

 

This year, as Wroclaw University of Technology was already heavily involved in organising the International Cryogenic Engineering Conference (ICEC), it requested that the “liquid helium” week to be exceptionally held at CERN. While this is certainly a good choice from the point of view of large cryogenic helium systems, with the large cryoplants cooling the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and its experiments, CERN has only acted as host laboratory organizing the course classes and visits, and the teaching and its validation remain under the responsibility of Wroclaw University of Technology as the responsible academic institution. However, the syllabus was adapted to include specific lectures, tutorials and laboratory work by CERN experts and visits of the cryogenic facilities on site.

Student accommodation and meals during the week were sponsored by six industrial companies (Air Liquide, Air Products, Linde Kryotechnik, SDMS Technologies, Velan and Weka). In total, 45 students participated in the CERN week, including 8 CERN staff who got the opportunity to join the classes.

 

by Laurent Tavian