Builing leading edge UK research centre

London -- The £380-million Diamond synchrotron is the largest publicly funded scientific facility to be built for over 40 years in the UK. Designed to shed light on everything from the inner workings of cells to the way planets form, it is designed to give scientists a greater spectrum of super-bright light greater than any other man-made source in the universe.

Designed to work by accelerating packets of electrons to almost the speed of light and whizzing them around a magnetic ring more than 500 metres in circumference, the Diamond synchrotron is housed in a futuristic doughnut-shaped building, which covers 45,500 square metres on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, South Oxfordshire.

Haden Young secured the £18-million contract to install and commission mechanical and electrical services on the Diamond synchrotron build. As well as the usual power, lighting, heating, ventilation, air-conditioning and fire protection requirements of the building, highly specialised water filtration, treatment and distribution was needed for the synchrotron machine itself.

A major restriction on the build was the reduction of on-site hotworks to the bare minimum. In addition, tight deadlines had to be met on machine installation and beam-line commissioning to ensure that the facility was ready for the scientific community to embark on experiments in the early part of 2007.

To meet project deadlines, and hotworks restrictions, Haden Young’s team introduced substantial off-site manufacture of both electrical containment and pipe work. In addition, alternatives to welding were used where possible on-site, such as the use of Victaulic grooved-end couplings to link the entire chilled water system together.

Working alongside Merit Process Engineering, an installation, engineering and facility management company, 96 modules of stainless-steel and carbon-steel pipework were developed, along with supporting steel to form a complete distribution ring around the inner edge of the torus.

Glenn Thomson, director, Merit Process explains: “Prefabrication was key to ensuring not only on-site installation speed, but improved safety. Off-site manufacture led to minimisation of welding on the Diamond synchrotron premises. The carbon steel was all connected on-site using Victaulic grooved end couplings and this modular approach produced significant overall programme time savings.”

The majority of the 15,000m of orbitally welded stainless steel and carbon steel process distribution pipe work was constructed at the Merit fabrication facility in Cramlington, Northumberland as modules and shipped to the construction site in Oxfordshire. These modules were then lifted into the main hall, positioned and bolted together to form a complete ring.

Each module was approx. 4.7m long and each had a deflection of 3.5 degrees to form the curvature of the building. The flexibility of the pipework couplings has helped to compensate for the curvature of the building and allow for expansion and contraction where necessary.

With seven beamlines open at present, the Diamond synchrotron will ultimately host up to 40 research stations, supporting the life, physical and environmental sciences. Throughout the next five years, a further fifteen beamlines will be added at a rate of four to five per annum, ensuring sufficient capacity for cutting edge research for many years to come.