Abstract: A method for regulating the cooldown of multiple cryogenic refrigerators supplied with compressed refrigerant from a common compressor includes the following steps. The cooldown of the refrigerators is monitored. The cooldown of at least one refrigerator is then governed to regulate the gas flow distributed from the compressor to each of the refrigerators to enhance the cooldown of an individual refrigerator. Governing a refrigerator to achieve the objectives of this method can be achieved by various processes. These processes include supplying heat to the refrigerator, slowing the speed of the displacer in the refrigerator, halting the motion of the displacer, and profiling the speed of the displacer as a function of the first and second-stage temperatures.

Abstract: A method for detecting the absence of a pressure differential across a cryogenic refrigerator includes the following steps. At least one measurement of load in the refrigerator is taken during both a warmstroke and a coldstroke of a refrigeration cycle. These measurements are then compared to determine whether the differential load across the cryogenic refrigerator has been lost. A system for performing this method includes a compressor that circulates compressed gas through a compressed gas line routed through a cryogenic refrigerator. Within the refrigerator, a displacer is driven through a refrigeration cycle by a motor. A means for measuring the load on the motor is provided, and an electronic module monitors the load measurements to detect a loss of differential pressure across the refrigerator by comparing the load on the motor during the warmstroke to the load on the motor during the coldstroke.

Abstract: In an integrated system to achieve a number of operations on a footwear upper assembly, an automatic rougher that includes a roughing tool adapted to remove material--and hence rough--the cement margin (or bonding surface) of the footwear upper assembly to provide a cementing surface onto which an outer sole is later applied. The cement margin (or bonding surface), as is known in this art, typically follows a closed-loop path that rapidly changes in all directions of an X-Y-Z coordinate system and the roughing tool must be continuously re-oriented to the many direction changes of the cement margin in order to track the margin. According to the present teaching the upper assembly, and hence the cement margin thereof, is ordinarily moved in rotational movement, rocking movement, transverse translational movement, and, also, vertical translational movement (i.e., movement toward and away from the roughing tool) during the course of roughing.

Abstract: Apparatus (and method) for automatically roughing the cement margin of a shoe or other footwear assembly, which footwear upper assembly includes an upper mounted on a last and an inner sole disposed upon the bottom of the last and connected to the upper. The apparatus (i.e., a roughing machine) typically includes a disc-shaped wire wheel (or other roughing tool) positioned with the plane of the brush approximately perpendicular to the cement margin at the region of contact between the two. The roughing machine includes a mechanism to receive the upper assembly and provide some combination of movements between the upper assembly and the periphery of the wire wheel to achieve a constant region (or area) of contact between the two as the cement margin moves with respect to the wire wheel in the course of roughing.

Abstract: Vitreous optical fibers are useful in an expanding number of technologies. A process, corresponding apparatus, and a hermetically sealed fiber of the above nature are disclosed wherein high energy ionized plasmas are used in a continuous production of a coated vitreous optical fiber. Drawn fibers are axially aligned by ambient gases discharging through high vacuum gas locks. These fibers are then continuously fed through a high energy plasma zone so that the surface of the drawn fiber is subjected to ionized bombardment. This provides plasma-milling of the fiber surface for improving the fiber strength and for superior bonding of subsequently applied coatings.In preferred practice, a vacuum zone is used to deposit, from a plasma ion source, a diamond-like elemental carbon film onto the moving fiber. Another plasma vacuum zone may be used to deposit, over the carbon film, a very thin film of a conductive elemental metal illustratively; tin, indium and aluminum.

Abstract: Vitreous optical fibers provided with hermetically sealed coatings applied by method and apparatus comprising; drawing a fiber directly from a fiber extruder into and through an elongated chamber having inert gas air locks at its opposite ends.