🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <77846@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM> mwilson@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM
(Mark Wilson) writes:
>In <olsen.32.724613003@vetmed.cvm.uiuc.edu> olsen@
vetmed.cvm.uiuc.edu (Aart_Olsen) writes:>
>|In article <BzEsw7.57B@cs.uiuc.edu> morrison@cs.uiuc.edu
(Vance Morrison) 
writes:>

>|>1) Slow down the rate of energy dumping. ...
>
>|This is what laboratory ultracentrifuges do.  Usually the rotor housing
>|is contained in a thick bronze casing which "slowly" absorbs the kinetic 
>|energy.  I once heard an ultracentrifuge blow, and it sounded like a freight
>|train for maybe five minutes.  Lab centrifuges contain a surprising
>|amount of energy--even though they have relatively small rotors and big 
>|motors they take quite a while to get up to speed because so much has to 
>|be pumped into them. 
>
>Do you happen to know how much one of the little beasties weighs.
>

Ultracentrifuge rotors weigh about 2-4 Kg.  They are maybe 15 cm diameter, 
spin at 60-80KRPM.  I think the best of them these days develop 800 kilo-
gravities at the tube ends (the tubes fit in the rotor).  They are the best 
technology around, by the way; they are about as massive and rotate as fast 
as current metallurgy reliably allows.
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Aart M. Olsen   University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign   a-olsen@uiuc.edu
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