Towards construction completion
Civil construction works are substantially completed. Final handover inspections are held, and site wide SAT3 - coordinated site acceptance tests - are in progress. Work coordination responsibilities for remaining buildings are handed over from Skanska to ESS.
At the end of this year we say goodbye to our construction partner Skanska after more than seven years of working in collaboration.
Accelerator
Beam commissioning
Beam commissioning activities, with the purpose to send beam from the Ion Source to the MEBT faraday cup, have now been going on since late October. Commissioning continues, ramping up the beam pulse with a higher current as we move forward.
Radio frequency (RF) power tests
Power tests continue for the klystrons and modulators, both the DTL RF systems in the Normal Conducting Gallery, the RF power stations in the spoke cells and in medium beta cells.
Linac Warm Units
More Linac Warm Units have been delivered from British in-kind partner STFC, and the clean room is being prepared to resume particle-free installation.
Experimental Halls & Labs
Sample environment E03
Fit-out of the sample environment area on the ground floor of the E03 lab building is ongoing. A 15-Tesla cryostat magnet for the BIFROST instruments has been delivered and is being prepared for site acceptance testing in a non-magnetic area. It was acquired from German research centre Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin (HZB).
BIFROST
Inside Experimental Hall 3, the area around the spectrometer vessel for BIFROST has been sealed off with fencing, as works with cadmium coating are now ongoing. The vessel has been opened up for technicians from Danish in-kind partner DTU (Technical University of Denmark) to install a 1-millimetre lining of cadmium around the internal surfaces. Once the cadmium sheets are installed, works will proceed with the installation of borated aluminium sheets within the tank.
Neutron shielding blocks
Shielding blocks are being placed in their permanent position along the beamlines for CSPEC and BIFROST in the beamline gallery. More than 20% of the total guide shielding length for the first nine instruments has now been delivered to ESS.
Bunker roof elements
Delivery of shielding blocks for the bunker roof has started. The bunker crane, to be installed early next year, will be used to enable the lifting of these heavy blocks to the top of the bunker.
Target
High bay
In preparation for a leak test to be performed on the Target high bay, all openings will be sealed. This includes doors, hatches, slab penetrations, ventilation systems and floor drains. The purpose of the test is to confirmed that the building is airtight.
Hydrogen room
Installation of overpressure vents for the wall frame installed on level 150 in the A2T building is ongoing.
The Cryogenic Moderator System is awaiting installation inside the hydrogen room. All equipment, including a cryostat, was delivered from German in-kind partner JFZ Julich last month.
Floor valves
The installation of the floor valves and drive units is completed. Floor valves cover the openings down to the process and maintenance cells of the Active Cells.
Port tubes
Welding of port tubes to the Monolith vessel continues.
