Publications | Diamond News Spring 2009

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The engineering behind the science

Engineer Callum IdeDiamond is set to pass another milestone this year as it starts to incorporate its first in-house designed front ends for the upcoming beamlines. Previously these systems were designed by project engineers at the Daresbury Laboratory. But with Diamond continuing to grow and more design being brought in-house, a dedicated front end project engineer, Callum Ide (right), was appointed in 2007 as part of the Accelerators Engineering team to manage the design and commissioning of these systems.

“One of the main purposes of a front end is to trim the beam so that the beamline only receives the portion of the beam that it needs and its optics equipment doesn’t have to handle excessive temperatures. We do this by using apertures which are basically copper funnels or cones: the photon beam goes into the cone and through a small hole in the centre, meaning that the unwanted fringes of the beam are absorbed. This makes the copper cones increase in heat load up to 200ºC, so we have to design them carefully to minimise the temperatures and provide water cooling.

The experimental stations that have a wiggler insertion device at their source producing hard X-rays, such as the extreme conditions beamline (I15) and JEEP (I12), create the biggest challenge. The heat produced within their front ends reaches in the order of 200°C, which is nearing the extreme temperature that the copper cones can handle; any higher and we would have to start making the cones out of exotic alloys instead of simple copper. Since the temperature is determined by the angle of the cone, we have to make sure we design a cone with a shallow enough angle to keep the temperature below 200°C; this means a long cone in a limited space, which can be tricky, but we enjoy the challenge.”

Calum Ide, Diamond engineer

The process of delivering a front end from start to finish takes about two years. “We spend around six months drafting and finalising the design of the front end, which is then followed by a 12 month procurement period,” says Callum. “After that, the system is delivered to Diamond pretty much fully assembled and we spend several months on commissioning and installation to ensure that it is in full operational order before it takes first beam.”

Since Diamond continues to add beamlines, there is always another front end waiting to be designed and delivered by the team – which includes the survey, electrical, controls, and vacuum engineers and technicians who contribute to the front end projects.It is fantastic to know that from now on, when the photon beam reaches future beamlines for the first time, it will have successfully travelled through a custommade front end, designed entirely in-house.