At the APS Upgrade’s offsite facility, powerful magnets and other components are being assembled in preparation for the year-long installation period beginning in April 2023.
- Status of the APS Upgrade
- APS Upgrade work — video
- Assembling the new APS Upgrade storage ring — image gallery
Status of the APS Upgrade
After years of planning and design work, the team upgrading the Advanced Photon Source (APS) is now preparing to make those plans and designs a reality. The APS, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science user facility at DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory, is one of the most productive synchrotron X-ray light sources in the world, and scientists use its ultrabright X-ray beams to help create longer-lasting batteries, stronger materials and more effective treatments for infectious diseases.
New storage ring
The APS has been operating for more than 25 years, and the APS Upgrade Project will see the electron storage ring at the heart of the facility replaced with a new state-of-the-art storage ring.
That new ring will be made up of 1,321 powerful electromagnets, complete with new vacuum systems and power supplies. Those components are being assembled into modules in an offsite building, where they will be stored until April 2023. That’s when a year-long shutdown of the APS is scheduled to begin, which will allow those modules to be transported to the APS facility, installed, and commissioned.
The magnets are assembled onto large concrete plinths. The centers of each magnet must line up to within half the width of a human hair, and that tolerance must be maintained across the new storage ring’s circumference, about 2/3 of a mile.
New front ends for beamlines
Also in this offsite building, teams are assembling new front ends for most of the beamlines around the APS. Front ends are the connective tissue, so to speak, between the electron storage ring and the experiment stations, where scientists conduct their experiments. They’re designed to deliver the ultrabright X-rays that will enable those experiments.
The upgraded APS, with the new storage ring and front ends installed, is scheduled to return to life in 2024 when first light is anticipated.
APS Upgrade work — video
Assembling the new APS Upgrade storage ring — image gallery
This image gallery captures the process of assembling 1,321 magnets and other components of the new storage ring into sections for transport to and installation in the Advanced Photon Source facility.
View of a partially assembled magnet module for the APS Upgrade Project. The new electron storage ring will be made up of 1,321 magnets assembled into 200 modules, each aligned to within half the width of a human hair. (Image by Argonne National Laboratory.)
Each of the 200 modules, such as the one seen here, will be carefully transported to the APS facility during the year-long shutdown and further assembled into 40 sectors. These sectors and installed in the existing APS infrastructure. (Image by Argonne National Laboratory.)
A view down the beam path of one of 160 fast corrector magnets that will be assembled (along with 14 other types of magnets) into modules and installed in the new multi-bend achromat storage ring for the APS Upgrade. (Image by Argonne National Laboratory.)
More than 60 of the needed 200 magnet modules have been partially assembled and are in storage. Once they are fully assembled, these modules will be prepared for transport to the APS during the year-long installation period, scheduled to begin in April 2023. (Image by Argonne National Laboratory.)
One of the fully assembled new front end exit tables that will be installed in the upgraded APS. New front end systems have been designed and are being built for every insertion device beamline at the APS, to deliver the brighter X-ray beams to the research stations. (Image by Argonne National Laboratory.)
Inside the clean room in the APS Upgrade’s offsite facility, workers test the new front end assemblies, making sure they are free of dust and other particles. New front end tables will be built for every insertion device beamline at the APS. (Image by Argonne National Laboratory.)
Technician Dino Canchola works on one of the new front-end exit tables that will be installed in the upgraded APS, inside the clean room in the APS Upgrade’s offsite facility. These new front end systems will deliver the brighter X-ray beams to the research stations, and cut off those beams when needed. (Image by Argonne National Laboratory.)
Thousands of components and completed assemblies for the new APS electron storage ring are stored Inside the APS Upgrade’s offsite building before they are assembled. Each component’s exact location is recorded for quick retrieval when needed. (Image by Argonne National Laboratory.)