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How a Helium Leak Disabled Every iPhone In a Medical Facility (vice.com)
dmoberhaus writes: In one of the strangest system admin tales of all time, one IT guy details how a new MRI machine managed to disable every single iPhone, Apple watch and iPad in a medical facility while leaving the rest of the devices untouched. Eric Woolridge, a system administrator at Morris Hospital in Illinois, said in a detailed post on the r/sysadmin subreddit that helium was to blame for the malfunctioning iPhones. "[T]he MRI installation involves supercooling the giant magnet in the machine by boiling off liquid helium," reports Motherboard. "This evaporated helium is usually pumped out of the facility through a vent, but this vent was leaking the helium into the rest of the facility. In all, about 120 liters of helium (or about 90,000 cubic meters in its gaseous state) was pumped out of the MRI room and an untold amount leaked into the rest of the hospital."
In a blog post, iFixit notes that helium atoms can wreak havoc on MEMS silicon chips. "MEMS are microelectromechanical systems that are used for gyroscopes and accelerometers in phones, and helium atoms are small enough to mess up the way these systems function," reports Motherboard. What's odd is that Android phones were not affected. Apparently, the reason "is because Apple recently defected from traditional quartz-based clocks in its phones in favor of clocks that are also made of MEMS silicon," reports Motherboard. "Given that clocks are the most critical device in any computer and are necessary to make the CPU function, their disruption with helium atoms is enough to crash the device."
In a blog post, iFixit notes that helium atoms can wreak havoc on MEMS silicon chips. "MEMS are microelectromechanical systems that are used for gyroscopes and accelerometers in phones, and helium atoms are small enough to mess up the way these systems function," reports Motherboard. What's odd is that Android phones were not affected. Apparently, the reason "is because Apple recently defected from traditional quartz-based clocks in its phones in favor of clocks that are also made of MEMS silicon," reports Motherboard. "Given that clocks are the most critical device in any computer and are necessary to make the CPU function, their disruption with helium atoms is enough to crash the device."
They use PMT tubes, and helium will leak thru glass seals easily, which is what happened to these chips.
They all changed frequency, and aren't working right. :)
The PMT's will just arc internally, glowing a nice bright orange, if you could see them. :D
It will drop the power supply rails, and there's no fixing the tubes, they'll have to be replaced.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Helium goes right through solid objects.
Plastics have molecules, and holes between molecules, about 25,000 times larger than a helium atom. Helium gas is normally single atoms, not molecules.
That's the challenge with helium hard drives. If you try to use a typical rubber seal, the holes between rubber molecules are much larger than helium atoms, allowing the helium to go right through almost as if the rubber wasn't there.
You may have noticed a helium balloon stops floating overnight. That's because the helium goes out right through the rubber. Interestingly, air leaks INTO the balloon due to something called partial pressure.
I'm sure at $120k/fill they would love to do this. The problem is how. This is many liters of highly compressed helium that has to escape somewhere in very short time in order to demagnetize the room in case of emergency.
In most cases (as in this), the valve/pipe to the outside simply freezes and the helium dumps through the room via other ways.
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Yeah, there's a ton of holes in the story. In the linked article, he admits his test used a far higher concentration of He than would have been possible in the hospital. Plus, if you actually follow up on the kinks... you find the story doesn't tell the whole truth, there were other devices that experienced glitches. And someone else points out that all the Apple devices in question use inductive charging.
So, there's a whole lot of assumptions going on.
Liquid helium costs about $5 per liter. So 120 liters is worth about $600. No recovery effort could possibly be cost effective for such a small leak.
Also 120 liters of liquid Helium is NOT 90,000 cubic meters of gas. It is about 90 cubic meters.
So why would you use anything other than Nitrogen?
It is often a blend. Liquid N2 is cheaper if it isn't pure, containing argon as well, which is about 1% of the atmosphere. Then you can add some helium to the mix if the fire danger is expected to be high, along the ceiling. The helium will make the gas blend rise.
If you are more concerned about liquid fires that burn near the ground, you can use a gas mixture of partially or mostly CO2, which is heavier than air and will create a smothering layer on the floor. CO2 is easier to store under pressure since it will liquify at about 5 atm.
Of course you also want to add mercaptan or some other odorant to make it stink, so a leak is immediately noticed. You don't want to smother people instead of fires.