delivered as part of the rapra composites engineering session at the advanced engineering uk 2015...

Delivered as part of the RAPRA composites engineering session at the Advanced Engineering UK 2015 Show

Composites in Big Science“Stuck between the physicist and the engineer”

Simon Canfer

Technology

STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratorysimon.canfer@stfc.ac.uk

Joint Astronomy Centre Hawaii (James Clark Maxwell telescope)

Isaac Newton Group of TelescopesLa Palma

Who are we? STFC is responsible for “big science” in the UK: particle and nuclear physics, astronomy, x-ray light sources,

neutron sources and high power lasers

+ grants to UK universities and research at CERN, ESO, ESRF and ILL

What we do• Formulation development for niche applications,

often in “Big Science”– Epoxy resins for superconducting magnet

vacuum infusion– Filled epoxies for neutron shielding, thermally

conductive, low contraction• Manufacture of composites- one-offs and short

runs from specialist materials• Mechanical testing down to 4 Kelvin• Thermal analysis (DSC, TGA, DMA,…)• Materials advice “will it or won’t it…”

Big Science

• Leading edge experiments tend to be– International collaborations– Very long timescales (decades)– High risk– Industrial involvement essential to

cope with manufacturing scale or quantity

Peter Higgs and the ATLAS detector

Image © CERN

LHC- the Large Hadron Collider

• What happened in the Big Bang?

• Nobel prize for Higgs discovery 2013

Image: CERN

LHC experiments: ATLAS

Image © CERN

Imag

es

STFC

Superconducting coil building

Imag

e ©

CER

N

Space: MIRI on JWST• Mid Infra-Red Instrument on James Webb Space

Telescope• IR imaging requires low temperatures, 6.7K detector,

rest of spacecraft at 40K• CFRP hexapod support provides this thermal

isolation– Thermal conductivity of struts at this temperature measured for

thermal design

Image: STFC-RALImage: Wikipedia

Our involvement in ITER

Shear-compression test of epoxy in liquid nitrogen

Compounding rad-hard gap filler putty

Flow test of gap filler mix for TF coils

Production of insulation breaks for TF coil helium cooling system

Common requirements• Operation at very low temperatures: issues include

thermal contraction, thermal conductivity, toughness • High stresses• Ionising radiation environments• One-off or small quantities• Limited prototyping

– frequently the experiment is it’s own prototype!• Composites are often a very good solution

Thanks for your attention