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Exhibit Hall #2 : MoRf-- The Mobile Refrigeration System
Disclaimer from Mark Lagus's Ph.D. Thesis (p.120)
I still remember its origin. During one of our group's twice daily daily meetings, Professor
Anderson turned to me and said "why don't you look into getting a compressor or something to
refrigerate the baffles." Not knowing anything about compressors or refrigeration, I quite
reasonably wanted a 'black box' off somebody's shelf that could be hooked up to our apparatus
and then ignored. In other words, I never intended to create an entity; I never intended for
it to have a name.
But it does. MoRf is a two stage vapor compression refrigeration system chock full of
ozone destroying dichorofluoromethane (aka Freon, R-12). MoRf, however, is not
a failure (at least for the moment). Instead, it is a success story-- a shining beacon of
hope, all alone in a lab of despair.
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| name of piece: |
Compressor Mounting Flanges |
| artist: |
Mark Eriksson |
| date of acquisition: |
1991 |
| description: |
"Three strikes and you're out!" Luckily, the third flange in this
series was a hit. The first was made precisely, but to fit the wrong size pipe. The second
was designed for the right size, but suffered a fraction to decimal conversion error on the
lathe.
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|
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| name of piece: |
Oil plug Adapter |
| artist: |
Mark Lagus |
| date of acquisition: |
1991 |
| description: |
This brass adapter had a small leak between the central threaded
adapter and the cylindrical spacer. After a terrific silver-soldering job, the threads
disappered.
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|
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| name of piece: |
Swageloks® |
| artist: |
various |
| date of acquisition: |
1991 |
| description: |
A collection of Swagelok® joints removed from the
mobile Refrigeration System. Evidently, silver-soldering changes the temper of the copper
tubing enough to prevent proper swaging. Luckily, their high price prevented more from
being used. |
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| exhibit on loan (?) |
| name of piece: |
Copper Tube |
| artist: |
MoRf |
| date of acquisition: |
1993 |
| description: |
From Mark's Refrigeration Notebook (p.39)
My often-neglected refrigeration system must have gotten lonely. It pulled one of those
vent-my-refrigeration attention getting tricks. Yup, the oldest one in the book. As it
turned out, the 3/4" intermediate line had been rubbing the smaller heat exchanger for
quite some time and had finally worn a hole thru the copper pipe! (It took a hell of a time
to finally check there and find it).
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Forward to Hall #3: Quenching
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