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Some amazing facts about the Spallation Neutron Source.
Around the world: The energy of the SNS's ion beam, expressed in terms of voltage, is 1 billion electron volts. The power is equivalent to 666 million 1.5-volt D-cell batteries joined end to end, enough to almost encircle the globe. • • • • Fast off the line: The ion beam accelerates through the linear accelerator from a standstill to approximately 90% the speed of light in two microseconds. • • • • Now that's cold: The SNS's linac takes advantage of superconducting technology: Approximately two-thirds of the linac's total 1000 feet is chilled with liquid helium to the superconducting temperature of 2 degrees above absolute zero, or 2 Kelvin. By comparison, a December night-game spectator at the Green Bay Packers' Lambeau Field should dress to endure a relatively toasty 275 Kelvin. • • • • Flurry of punches: Following 1060 turns around the accumulator ring, 150 trillion accelerated protons strike the mercury target in a pulse that lasts only one millionth of a second. These pulses strike the target 60 times per second. • • • • Ouch: The pulses strike the target vessel with enough energy to release neutrons from atomic nuclei for use in research. The force is equivalent to striking the vessel with a 200-pound block of steel traveling at 50 miles per hour. • • • • Over the horizon: The SNS requires the tuning of the beam lines to be so precise that Earth's curvature was factored into the construction of the linear accelerator—a tiny but critical difference of 7 millimeters from one end of the 1000-foot linac to the other. • • • • Fine as frog's hair: All critical SNS accelerator and target components—independent of size, shape, and weight—were installed to specifications within a mite-sized 0.2 of a millimeter. • • • • Thick as a brick: Shielding over the tunnel into the target facility "monolith" consists of 7 feet of steel and 2 feet of concrete. The target facility floor is 5 feet thick. The monolith alone has 12 million pounds of steel shielding and 4 million pounds of concrete. • • • • Plugged in: Beam power in the linac is 1.4 megawatts, enough electricity to power 1400 homes. Some 42 MW are required to generate 1.4 MW of beam power. The SNS will use enough electric power to serve 30,000 people, a city the size of Oak Ridge.
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Web site provided by Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Communications and External Relations |
