Scientific Magnetics - Design Consultancy in Applied Superconductivity and Cryogenics

Design Consultancy

Scientific Magnetics' principal design staff are available to help solve engineering problems in the fields of cryogenics and applied superconductivity.

Fred Domptail MSc DEUTEC Ingénieur UTC CEng MIMechE

Fred Domptail is a chartered mechanical engineer and a Registered Analyst with NAFEMS. Fred graduated with a mechanical engineering degree (Diplôme d’ingénieur) from the Université technologique de Compiègne in France in 1996 and later went on to gain an M.Sc. from Cranfield University. Fred has over fifteen years experience in product design and development, ten of which were gained in the field of superconducting magnet and cryogenic equipment. Most recently Fred’s key areas of responsibility have been in the development of the next generation MRI gradient coils, the design of superconducting magnets and cryogenic equipment and leading company-wide Finite Elements Modelling activities.
Some of Fred’s most noted achievements include the development of superconducting coils reinforcement technologies, innovative strain measurement using fibre optic technology and the generation of design guidelines enhancing robustness and consistency of hardware design across several departments. Fred has designed numerous test magnets to characterise superconducting wire performance, a high performance 21.5 tesla magnet and high temperature superconducting insert coils generating 22 tesla at 4.2 K.

Stephen Harrison MA (Cantab) CEng FIMechE MInstP

Stephen Harrison graduated from Cambridge University in 1990 with a first class degree in Engineering. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and a Member of the Institute of Physics. He was one of the founders of Scientific Magnetics (Space Cryomagnetics Ltd) in 2000.
Stephen has worked as a cryogenic engineer for more than 20 years, and has been responsible for the design and development of many novel and innovative cryogenic systems for superconducting devices including magnets, motors, and fault current limiters, with cooling media including helium, nitrogen, hydrogen, and cryogenically frozen water. Highlights include a zero-loss helium cooling system for a high field open MRI; the world’s first high power high temperature superconducting (HTS) current leads; the world’s first commercially produced HTS magnets; and conduction cooling systems for some of the largest cryogen free superconducting magnets ever produced. Stephen has published 26 papers on cryogenics and applied superconductivity in scientific journals, and has been on the review panels of a number of publications on heat transfer and applied superconductivity. He has been a member of the Technical Committee of the International Magnet Technology Conference, and has given invited lectures on cryogenics and applied superconductivity at universities including Cambridge, Texas A&M, Houston, and the Royal College of Arts in London.

Steve Milward BSc PhD CPhys MInstP

Steve Milward was a co-founder of Space Cryomagnetics Ltd (Scientific Magnetics) in 2000. As Technical Director he is responsible for all aspects of electro-magnetic and quench design for our superconducting magnet systems and for new product development.
Steve spent four years at Leicester University researching XUV instrumentation for the ROSAT Wide Field Camera all sky survey satellite experiment. Steve then specialised in superconductivity, and was instrumental in the development of the HELIOS compact synchrotron and in the design and manufacture of a set of large, superconducting cold-iron quadrupole magnets for the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in the USA. Later, Steve participated in model dipole development for the new LHC accelerator in collaboration with CERN, and was responsible for the design and manufacture of a high-field multi-pole superconducting wiggler magnet for Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Nick Shaw MA (Cantab) MSci PhD MInstP

Nick Shaw graduated with a first class degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University in 1999. Always keen to apply academic ideas to industrial applications, he was a founding member of the Medical Physics Group at the Cavendish Laboratory. During his postgraduate degree, Nick wrote a suite of software in C and C++ for the design and optimisation of novel magnets for magnetic resonance imaging using genetic algorithms.
Experienced in parallel programming on cluster computers and supercomputers, Nick designed and commissioned, in collaboration with industry, a unique 1 T 360 mm bore split-coil geometry superconducting MRI magnet. After the conferral of his doctorate in 2003, Nick took on the advanced instrument development, construction and testing of the world's first high resolution, multi-slice simultaneous combined magnetic resonance and positron emission tomography imaging system.
Nick joined Scientific Magnetics in 2005, and has been responsible for some of our most innovative projects, including asymmetric split pairs and vector magnets.