Expansion project to match form to function
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Construction crews work at MI-8. |
The MI-8 building can be a loud place, especially at night.
Technicians at MI-8 test pieces of equipment used to make neutrino beams, a deafening process that involves jolting the pieces with 200,000-amp pulses of electricity about every two seconds for hours at a time. Each pulse crackles as loudly as a sledgehammer against an anvil.
They run these tests at night to avoid interrupting other work in the building including the construction of parts for neutrino experiments. There is simply not enough room to separate the testers from the builders.
To fix problems like this one, Fermilab awarded $2.9 million in funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to R.C. Wegman Construction Co. to expand MI-8.
The MI-8 building is actually a service building for the 8 GeV line in the accelerator complex, complete with a hatch that spans almost from wall to wall and leads to the service tunnel 30 feet below. It's an awkward fit for the technicians and their equipment. They tuck spare parts and raw materials against the railing around the hatch, stack them on the floor and even prop them in the nooks of the building's I-beam columns. Delicate pieces of replacement equipment wait under plastic sheets near the door. To assemble long, fragile pieces of focusing horns used in neutrino experiments, they use a crane hanging over the service tunnel hatch.
Fermilab scientists use focusing horns, which roughly resemble 12-foot trumpets, to create beams of neutrinos for experiments. To do this, Fermilab scientists send high-energy protons into a carbon target. The debris from each collision passes through a pair of focusing horns before decaying into neutrinos.
Each horn costs about $1 million and takes around two years to build. Once installed, horns are exposed to harsh environments, which makes them very difficult to repair when they fail. So technicians build them to last and are constantly making spares.
The expansion will allow them to build spares faster by giving them workspace specifically built to accommodate them. This might also save them from working the night shift.
-- Kathryn Grim |