NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #30/NN_1992_30.iso/spool/sci/physics/21308

Text File | 1992-12-16 | 5.1 KB | 101 lines

Newsgroups: sci.physics
Path: sparky!uunet!ornl!sunova!sscvx1.ssc.gov!wylie
From: [e-mail] (Russ Wylie)
Subject: Super Collider: construction to begin on low-energy booster
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Organization: External Affairs, Super Collider Lab
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Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 18:02:37 GMT
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Contact:    Russ Wylie
        [phone]
    DALLAS, TX. -- (Wednesday, December 16, 1992) -- Cajun Contractors, Inc.,
of Baton Rouge, LA, has been awarded an $8,560,000 contract to begin
construction of facilities that will house one of the main components of
the Department of Energy's Superconducting Super Collider (SSC).  Now
under construction, the SSC  will be used for scientific investigations
into the fundamental nature of energy and matter.
    The contract was awarded by the SSC's construction management firm, The
PB/MK Team, a joint venture of Parsons Brinkerhoff Quade and Douglas,
Inc., and Morrison Knudsen Corp.
    Jon Ives, an associate director of the Super Collider Laboratory and head
of its civil construction division, said that Cajun will build facilities
and supporting infrastructure for a low energy booster accelerator, the
second in a chain of four successively more powerful booster accelerators
that will form the injector system for the collider.  In sequence, the
four machines will accelerate the energy level of a beam of protons,
subatomic particles from the nuclei of atoms.  At the end of the sequence,
the proton beam will be injected -- first in one direction and then in the
other -- into the two main collider accelerators that will be housed in an
underground tunnel stretching around a racetrack-shaped course 54 miles in
circumference.
    Construction began last May on facilities to house the first stage of the
injector system, a  linear (straight line) accelerator (LINAC) 792 in
length.  It is expected to be completed by next July.  The LINAC will
deliver the proton beam to the low energy booster.
    Cajun will build the tunnel to house the low energy booster along with
tunnels necessary for transferring the proton beam from the LINAC to the
low-energy booster and from the low energy booster to the next stage
accelerator, the medium energy booster.  The low energy booster tunnel
will form a ring 1,870 ft. in circumference (three arc sections connected
by three straight sections).  The tunnel cross section will measure 12 ft.
by 10 ft.  Cajun will also build: nearly 2,900 ft. of service roads; 10
pre-engineered, above-ground, steel utility buildings; related utility
services; and a short tunnel off the low energy booster for diversion and
absorption of the particle beam.  The tunnels will be built using cut and
cover techniques.
    Completion of the work is scheduled for April of 1994.
    Contracts will be awarded later for the third and fourth stages of the
injector system, the medium- and high-energy boosters.  Like the
low-energy booster, they will be circular machines measuring,
respectively, 2.45 miles and 6.75 miles in circumference.  The four
machines will be housed in a series of adjacent underground tunnels.
    Each booster will increase the energy stored in the proton beam whose
width will be less than the diameter of a human hair.  When the beam
leaves the LINAC, it will have been accelerated to an energy of 600
million electron volts (MeV), the low energy booster will accelerate the
energy to 12 giga (billion) electron volts (GeV), and the medium energy
booster to 200 GeV.  The high energy booster will accelerate the energy to
nearly 2 trillion electron volts (TeV) prior to injecting the beam into
the two main collider accelerators.  The two beams will then orbit in
opposite directions.  The main collider will be able to accelerate each
beam to a maximum energy of 20 TeV.  At regions along the way, the beams
will be crossed inside huge detectors where the particles will collide at
the rate of 100 million collisions per second.  The resulting debris -- a
shower of subatomic particles -- will be recorded, tracked, and measured
by the detectors for later scientific analysis.
    The Superconducting Super Collider will be used by scientists to gain a
deeper understanding of the fundamental forces and building blocks of the
universe.  By colliding subatomic particles at energy levels higher than
ever before, scientists will be able to study conditions similar to those
thought to have existed less than a picosecond -- the time it takes a beam
of light to travel 1/100th of an inch -- following the Big Bang.
    The Super Collider is being built in Ellis County, TX, approximately 30
miles south of the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex.  The great machine is
expected to be completed by September of 1999.
    The Super Collider Laboratory is operated for the United States
Department of Energy by the Universities Research Association, Inc., a
not-for-profit consortium of 79 leading research universities in the
United States and Canada.

(12/16/92)


Russ Wylie, Director, External Affairs,
Super Collider Laboratory
Dallas, TX 75237
214 708 1045; FAX [phone]