Liquid Helium Fills for MRI Magnets
Liquid helium fills for MRI magnets, scheduled nationwide. FDM handles both the helium delivery and the fill, so it is one call and one schedule instead of two vendors pointing at each other. For imaging sites watching a helium level fall and trying to work out whether it is a fill, a cold head, or both. Veteran-owned, and we will tell you when a fill is the wrong answer.
Out of Helium Allocation?
Helium is genuinely constrained, and allocation is how suppliers ration it. When yours is gone it is gone, whatever the reason you need more. We work with more than one supplier, so we can chase whoever actually has product rather than being held to what a single contract has left, and price it against more than one quote. Call 615-479-5572. Call or text 615-479-5572, email service@fdmenterprises.com, or use the form on this page - whichever is quickest for you. Please reach out as early as you can - the options narrow and get more expensive as the level drops.
Your allocation is spent for the year
The most common call we get. Allocation is set against contract volume, and once it is used the answer from a single supplier is simply no. That is not a scheduling problem you can talk your way around, it is a contract limit. It is also the exact situation we exist to solve.
A quench, planned or otherwise
A quench empties the magnet. The refill volume is far beyond anything a routine allocation was sized for, so sites that quench almost always blow through what they have left. Call before you have the number, not after.
The cold head has failed
Once the cold head stops, the magnet is on passive boil-off and the clock is set by the magnet. You need product and a crew on the same day, not a purchase order cycle. See cold head replacement.
Chiller or cooling water failure
The compressor protects itself and shuts down, and the cold head stops with it. Sites often log this as a facilities fault and lose days before anyone connects it to helium being consumed the whole time.
An extended power outage
Building power out for longer than the system rides through means the magnet reverts to its passive boil-off rate for the entire outage. After a storm, every site in the region is calling the same suppliers on the same morning.
You have no supply agreement at all
Sites that buy once or twice a year have no allocation to run out of, which sounds simpler until you need product. Without an account you are behind every contract customer in the queue.
Why Sites Call Us About Helium
What The Level Trend Is Telling You
A falling helium level is a symptom, not a diagnosis. Before product goes in the magnet, the cold head, the compressor and the closed-loop circuit get looked at, because a fill into a failing cold head buys weeks instead of years. If the magnet is already down, see MRI machine repair.
The level still reads acceptable, but the monthly drop is bigger than it was last year. The magnet is rarely the cause. A cold head losing capacity, a compressor past its adsorber interval, or a slow loss at the flex lines will all show up here first. The trend predicts the emergency, not the number.
An audible knock, or a change in the rhythm you are used to hearing in the equipment room. This points at the cold head itself or at contamination in the helium circuit. Cooling capacity falls well before a cold head stops, so boil-off is already climbing by the time anyone notices the sound.
No cycling, and a helium level moving in a way you can watch. Power loss to the compressor, a chiller or water flow fault, or a compressor trip are the usual causes. From that moment the magnet is running on the cryogen already in it. This is a same-day phone call.
Warm supply water, a failed chiller pump, a blocked heat exchanger, or a filter nobody has changed. The compressor protects itself and shuts down, and the cold head stops with it. Sites often log this as a facilities problem and lose days before anyone connects it to the magnet.
The closed-loop helium circuit is reading off the manufacturer's values. That usually means a loss at the flex lines or at the self-sealing couplings, or a circuit that was never brought back to charge after earlier work. Cooling capacity drops while everything still appears to run normally.
Remote monitoring dropped off months ago, or the level only gets read when somebody happens to walk past the cabinet. Without a trend line there is no early warning, so the first thing anyone sees is an alarm, and by then the cheap options are gone.
Situations That Need a Fill Scheduled
Planned Fills Cost Less Than Emergency Ones
Most of these are known weeks ahead. Booking product and crew together against a known date is what keeps a fill from turning into a ramp, and a ramp from turning into a project. Cryogen scheduling can also be written into an MRI full service contract.
Every magnet has its own threshold, set by the manufacturer and by how the system is monitored. Below it your options narrow and the cost of every one of them goes up. If you are near it, schedule rather than wait.
Building power out for longer than the system can ride through. The cold head stops and the magnet reverts to its passive boil-off rate for the whole outage. Sites in storm regions should know what a two-day outage costs them in helium before it happens.
Field lost and cryogen vented. This is a planned project, not a same-day fix. The vent path and quench pipe get looked at before anything goes back in, because whatever let go once will be asked to work again.
Decommissioned, between installs, in storage, or a research magnet between projects. A magnet at field boils off whether or not anybody is using it, and these are the systems most likely to be forgotten until the level is critical.
The helium lines have to come apart to reach the adsorber, and older self-sealing couplings do not always reseal. That can pull the charge down on a job that was scheduled as routine maintenance. Plan the cryogen alongside the work, not after it.
Cryogen has to be scheduled against the rigging and the ramp, and the site has to be ready to receive it. This is where a missed delivery window turns into a second mobilization somebody has to pay for.
How a Fill Job Runs
Tell us the magnet and the level
Make, model, field strength, the current helium level, and what the level has done over the last three months. The trend matters more than today's reading.
We size the fill and check the cause
How much product, what container, and whether the cold head or compressor needs attention first. Filling a magnet with a failing cold head buys weeks instead of months, and you should know that before you pay for the helium.
Product and crew arrive together
The delivery is scheduled against the labor. A dewar sitting on your dock waiting for a crew is losing product you already paid for.
You get a written report
Level before and after, circuit pressures, cold head condition, and what the trend says about when the next fill is due. That report is what makes the next one a scheduled job instead of an emergency.
Frequently Asked Questions
Read the trend, not the number. Pull the helium level for the last three to six months and look at the slope. A level dropping faster than it used to is telling you something has changed in the cryogenic chain, and that is worth a call before it reaches your threshold.
It depends on the magnet, how much it actually takes, the delivered cost of product on the day, and how hard the site is to get into. A published number would be wrong for most people. Send us the magnet make, model and field strength along with the current level and we will quote it properly.
Either works. We can arrange the product and have it delivered to the site, or we can work with product you already have on hand. If you want us to handle supply, see our liquid helium delivery page.
No. A fill restores the level. It does not touch whatever is consuming it. If your boil-off is climbing, the cold head, the compressor or the circuit pressure is the reason, and a fill on its own buys time at market prices. Fix the cause and the fill lasts.
Urgent. A cold head loses cooling capacity before it stops, so the knock is usually the middle of the failure rather than the start of it. Boil-off is already elevated. Get it looked at while you still have a choice about scheduling.
The magnet starts boiling off at its passive rate. How long you have depends on the magnet, its insulation, and how full it was when the cold head quit. Treat it as a live outage and call the same day.
Yes. That is a refill and re-ramp, and it is planned work rather than an emergency response. The vent path gets inspected first. Rushing this step is how a site quenches twice.
Tell us the make, model and field strength and we will confirm coverage before we quote. We would rather turn a job down up front than take one we cannot do properly.
Yes, and these are the ones that get forgotten. A magnet at field is consuming helium continuously whether or not it is scanning. If you are holding a system between installs, it needs to be on somebody's calendar.
Fills are scheduled anywhere in the continental United States. FDM's own engineers cover eleven states across the central and southeastern US, listed in the Service Coverage links on this page. The fill network reaches past that. If your site is outside the listed states, call 615-479-5572 with the magnet and the address and we will confirm before we quote.
Send us your magnet and your helium level
Request a helium quote
We reply by the next business day.
Helium Fills Nationwide
Liquid helium fills are scheduled anywhere in the continental United States. Product and crew are booked together against your date, wherever the magnet sits. The states below are where FDM also runs MRI, CT and contrast injector service directly.