We are happy to report that Cornell Facilities & Campus Services Project Manager Alex Chevallard has asked contractor Streeter and their subcontractors to provide all the finishing touches and polish to the new Wilson West building by the end of January 2024. At that time the beautiful new building will be ready for the start of installation of the new sector 5 X-ray beamline - also knowns as the High Magnetic Field (HMF) facility. The NSF-supported HMF construction project started in 2021 and is now, after 3 years, reaching the installation and commissioning phases that will fill out 2024 and 2025.
The first half of 2024 will see a swarm of activity related to three major installations: 1) the large lead-shielded HMF hutch, 2) an overhead equipment platform, and 3) the mechanical, electrical and plumbing of utilities. But before that it was most important to have the CLASSE survey team, led by Dragana Jusic, extend the coordinate system based on the CESR storage ring into Wilson West. Photo 1 provided shows their latest work to place survey monuments and determine where the large hutch needs to be placed. Speaking of the large HMF hutch, photo 2 shows the steel structure being fabricated by Raulli & Sons (Syracuse) to hold all the lead-steel panels. Note the 18-wheel trailer at bottom left of the photo - it looks like the hutch might be able to hold 3 or 4! After being dry fit in Syracuse, the hutch will be rebuilt in Wilson West in February 2024. Just after that, an equipment platform and the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing work will be installed by contractors from April to June.
A shutdown of the CESR accelerator and a pause of CHESS user operations begins in July, which creates a window of opportunity for starting to install the X-ray beamline front-end in the Wilson west flare. The remainder of 2024 will see the beamline buildout from upstream to downstream into the hutch. The project objective is to have X-ray beams into the hutch before the end of 2024. Full steam ahead!
