Daresbury boffins developing world’s most powerful particle accelerator

UK engineers from Daresbury in Cheshire have delivered a key piece of prototype equipment to one of the world’s most ambitious scientific experiments, currently being constructed in Sweden.

STFC teams are playing a key role in the design and development of the €1.9bn European Spallation Source (ESS).

Once complete, it will be the world’s most powerful particle accelerator dedicated to generating neutrons to help us look deep inside the materials from which our world is made.
 
With powerful proton beams that are a hundred times brighter than at any other facility in the world, it will help us to unlock the secrets of materials at the atomic level.  

Situated in Lund, Sweden, its 600 metre particle accelerator will use a proton beam travelling at 90% of the speed of light to chip off (or spallate) tiny particles called neutrons from the nuclei of atoms, which will lead to advances in medicine, cleaner energy, transport and the environment.

Engineers at Daresbury Laboratory in Cheshire are playing a key role in the development of new accelerating technology, with a £10.5m project to design, and construct 130 different beam transport modules, forming 70% of the entire accelerator length.
 
The first prototype Beam Transport Module unit has now been delivered to the ESS, Lund.
 
Dr Paul Aden, mechanical engineer at STFC, who is project managing the design and construction of the Beam Transport Modules, said: “The design of these modules is based around many years’ experience of designing modules for cutting edge accelerators both in the UK and internationally.

“This project, which will require more than 30 staff years of effort, will deliver the final module in 2019, marking the end of the ESS stage 1 installation, and the point at which the accelerator can be switched on.”

The Beam Transport Module project is just one of several projects being undertaken by STFC’s scientists and engineers at Daresbury.
In total, STFC Daresbury will be providing more than £65m worth of in kind contribution to the ESS, a substantial amount of the UK’s £165m investment, which was announced by BEIS in 2014.

Another major project being undertaken at the lab is looking at the construction and testing of the superconducting accelerating cavities.

This is a crucial component of the accelerator as the quality of the cavities will determine the total possible acceleration of the proton beam.

These cavities will be installed in the second stage of the installation in 2022 allowing the accelerator to reach it’s full potential.

Professor Susan Smith, head of STFC’s Daresbury Laboratory, said: “UK scientists are world leaders in accelerator technology and have been instrumental in developing next generation accelerator solutions across the world.  

“STFC has already made a substantial contribution to the development of this international project through our engineering and design expertise, and this will continue over the coming years.  We look forward to the success and impact of the technological advances that the ESS will achieve.”