The Cryogenic Laboratory enables experiments and tests to be carried out with cryogenic liquids. It is especially designed for the handling of:
liquid hydrogen,
liquid methane
and liquid oxygen.
These cryogenic liquids are used as propellants in space travel. The aim of the laboratory is to investigate scientific and technical issues relating to cryogenic propellant handling and to contribute to technical solutions, particularly with regard to the development of carrier systems.
The core area of the laboratory consists of an 8 metre high hall and an explosion-proof room.
In these rooms there are various workstations with their own media supply, where test systems can be set up universally according to the respective test requirements. The laboratory has a sloshing table that can be used to investigate the sloshing behaviour of cryogenic liquids. A vacuum chamber will be installed shortly. The laboratory also has a workshop, a metrology laboratory, a pre-integration room and a cleaning laboratory. These rooms are used to set up and prepare test objects and test systems.
The cryogenic laboratory carries out investigations in the fields of basic and materials research as well as qualification and functional tests. These include, for example, pressure loss measurements on sieves, tests of systems for handling cryogenic propellants, sloshing experiments with real tank geometries and the investigation of thermal aspects in fuel tanks. The laboratory is part of the upper stage research network and works on research tasks from the Future Launchers Preparatory Programme (FLPP) of the European Space Agency (ESA), among others.
