Operating Tips

NOTICE

Premature Aging of MRI CryoProbe^TM

MRI CryoProbes^TM use the latest cryogenic coil technology. Long and high exposure to increased vibration stress caused by excessive gradient switching can potentially lead to premature aging of materials and components, and ultimately to the failure of the MRI CryoProbe^TM.

During the design and verification phase, every effort is made to eliminate or reduce potential failures due to mechanical vibration. However, the vibration patterns depend on the MRI experiment and the cumulative effects contributing to material fatigue are highly nonlinear in terms of gradient amplitude and slew rate.

As a preventive measure to ensure the longest possible lifetime of the MRI CryoProbe^TM, it is therefore recommended to reduce the vibration load as much as possible by avoiding maximum gradient amplitude and switching speed where not absolutely necessary, and/or by limiting the total experiment time for these high-power gradient experiments. This is especially the case when SPIRAL, EPI or DTI protocols are used.