Quick Shot
The FLUX Beam Transport Project (FP9T)
May 30, 2023
Pictured from left to right is Dale Guy (Mechanical Engineering), and Alyson Kittle and Dan Neyland (OMEGA Experimental Operations) peering into the freshly cored hole through the LaCave wall into the OMEGA plenum space.
The FLUX Beam Transport Project (FP9T) is a subproject of the overall FLUX Project. FP9T is tasked with providing a safe beam-transport path from the FLUX facility in Room 5101 to the P9 port of the OMEGA-60 target chamber. This includes clearing the path and designing/installing the required beam-transport hardware components. Accomplishing this has involved extensive relocation of equipment and electrical services that resided along the established path. Clearing the path also involved coring 16-in.-diam holes through the concrete wall between the OMEGA plenum space and LaCave and through the concrete floor between LaCave and the OMEGA-60 target chamber.
The coring operations were completed using LLE Mechanical Engineering’s coring equipment. The equipment utilizes a closed-loop cooling water filtration system, which significantly mitigates contamination in the clean-room areas. Coring through the 15-in.-thick wall took one day. Coring through 30-in.-thick Target Bay floor took a day and a half.
In addition to addressing all of the safety and contamination protocols involved with the operation, a contractor was engaged to provide cross-sectional analyses of regions of the wall and floor that were to be penetrated. Both ground-penetrating radar and electromagnetic-interference transmission technologies were used to confirm that no electrical conduits were embedded within the coring pathways.