MECHANICS · IAPP MeChanICs - Marie Curie linking Industry to CERN

IAPP MeChanICs - Marie Curie linking Industry to CERN

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) is the world’s largest and highest energy particle collider. The LHC was commissioned in 2009 and since early 2010 the LHC holds the world record of the highest energy man made elementary particle collisions, currently at 13000 billion electron volts (TeV). In summer 2012, LHC reported the discovery of the Higgs boson, ending the decades-long search for the particle that completes the Standard Model of elementary particles. However, while the LHC is designed to reveal the existence of such particles, it is not very suitable for high precision studies of the properties of the Higgs boson (and possibly other particles that might be discovered at the LHC in the next years). These precision studies are required to understand the exact nature of the theory containing these particles. Such studies can be best performed at an electron-positron collider in the TeV range. The Compact linear Collider (CLIC) is one of the alternatives being studied that would be able to make these precision measurements and thus would fulfill the requirements for the next high energy frontier machine. The physics goals of CLIC sets stringent requirements on the precision of the CLIC components that are above the current standards in industry. The current design requires geometrical tolerances and surface roughness in the order of a few micrometer and a few tens of nanometer, respectively, for the basic components that in addition needs to be produced in very large quantities. For this reason, the Helsinki Institute of Physics (HIP) at University of Helsinki (UH) conceived the Marie Curie linking Industry to CERN (MeChanICs) collaboration; a four year project (2010-2014) that aimed to enhance the knowledge exchange in the field of high precision manufacturing. The MeChanICs Industry-Academia Partnership and Pathways (IAAP) platform for precision manufacturing knowledge exchange was a key part of Finland’s involvement in the CLIC R&D programme during the years 2010-2014. It gathered five manufacturing companies (Loval Oy, Metso Materials Technology, Tarkmet Oy, Lewel Group Oy and Mectalent Oy) together to enhance their existing research and technology development efforts with HIP/UH and CERN. The mechanisms used for the transfer of knowledge within MeChanICs were two-way intersectoral secondments and dissemination workshops. Close cooperation with academia and industry in near future is vital in devising an industrialisation scheme that enables the mass production of the required CLIC components at an affordable price and according to a stringent timeline. The scientific and technological objective of MeChanICs was to contribute at the early stage of the technical design phase of CLIC. Here, the main focus is to show technically how a multi-TeV CLIC can be built with reasonable cost. Altogether 103 person months of secondments and recruitments were completed in partner organisations during the four years’ time. Industrial specialists were seconded to CERN and HIP/UH for 6 to 18 months, while scientists from CERN and HIP/UH were seconded to industrial companies for 2 months. 2 postdoc scientists were recruited to work for the MeChanICs project for 24 and 21 months, respectively. The work was done in five technical work packages covering the manufacturing chain from design to assembly. Each industrial partner was planned to be in charge of one work package. The work packages were design (Lewel Group Oy), material (Metso Materials Technology), machining (Mectalent Oy), joining (Loval Oy) and assembly (Mectalent Oy and Loval Oy). If built, CLIC will require a very large number of parts and components but as it is still in the development phase, the number of orders have been relatively low and focused mainly on prototypes for experimental testing and quality assessments. CLIC is continuously searching for companies that would be interested and capable to participate in the development and manufacturing of the challenging components and structures. It was here that MeChanICs stepped in to breach, ensuring effecting and sustainable future co-operation in the manufacturing of the CLIC components. The project provided the necessary networks and connections to overcome communication issues. The industry has the knowledge and experience of doing large scale productions to a much larger extent than research institutes, where the focus is on making working prototypes. From European industry perspective, CLIC represents major technological challenges, possibilities for long-term RTD collaboration, as well as significant future commercial opportunities, especially as CLIC technologies already show potential beyond particle physics applications. The setup of MeChanICs proved a valuable tool for the CLIC study, and was representative of the direction in which RTD is moving. New particle accelerator technology very often relies on cutting-edge technologies in materials, manufacturing, electronics and others, so there will be an increasing need for industry participation in R&D activities related to components for new accelerator technologies. www.hip.fi/mechanics

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