Target
A lot of work is ongoing in the Target Building, including concreting and other works. In the area between the target and associated buildings, expansion joints are being assembled, with the purpose of separating the buildings and allowing for irregular and high movement in more than one direction, without the different building parts affecting each other. The 65 mm joints are found in the floors, walls and ceilings and will be covered with waterproofing tape, and all joints on floor level with a stainless-steel cover (called Migutan).
The temporary crane has been lifted to high bay level and will be installed shortly. It will become operational early March, enabling ESS Target Division to lift in the 60-tonne target vessel, arriving from ESS Bilbao, Spain, this spring.
Steel columns for Experimental Hall 2 are almost complete. Work on roof trusses will start next week, with sandwich panels and the TRP (Tremco Roof Preservative) roof to follow. Steel works for Experimental Hall 1 will start in March.
The foundation and plinth castings for the NMX cave inside Experiment Hall 3 are complete, with precast wall erection is to follow. Works are also ongoing with shielding for neutron beam guides in the Beam Line Gallery. In lab building 1A, the first level of hollow core slabs are in place, to be followed by reinforcement and a slab casting, after which the next level steel can proceed.
Accelerator
The installation of the tuning beam dump is making progress, and last week the actual beam dump, a 1.7m-long cylinder made of a copper alloy, was positioned in place inside the beam dump cave.
General
The construction of the Waste Treatment Facility is proceeding according to plan, with 23 out of a total of 37 concrete castings achieved. All concrete works will be completed by May 2020.
A number of MEP (Mechanical, Electrical & Plumbing) jobs remain in the Central Utility Building before testing of the systems can proceed. At the same time, installation of the heat recycling system is in progress, and next week the cooling plants will be lifted up to the roof level.
Cool stuff
ESS Cryogenics, SRF and IFJ PAN teams are in the process of cooling down the cavities of the very first cryomodule. This cryomodule, located inside Test Stand 2 bunker in the Gallery Building, is a prototype, and the data from the test results will be used to enhance the testing of the 30 elliptical cryomodules in serial production, to be installed in the Linac. The first stage of the cryogenic tests involves cooling down the shield circuit of the cryomodule to ~40K; in the second stage the cavities will be cooled to 4-4.5 K with a stable trend. After this has been achieved, vacuum pumps will be used to reduce the pressure, which will lower the temperature to the desired final cooling temperature of 2K (-271°C). The final test will be to add RF power into the cavities, by means of klystrons powered by a modulator. All this action takes place inside the Test Stand 2 bunker, with helium fed from the test and instrument cryoplant in the coldbox hall, which in turn receives its helium supply from the helium tanks and compressors in Cryo Compressor Building. All this takes place in a closed loop, as to not waste any helium, and is supervised via the computer screens in the Local Control Room in the Gallery Building.
