delivered as part of the rapra composites engineering session at the advanced engineering uk 2015...
TRANSCRIPT
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 [email protected]
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