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MICE - Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment
08 Jun 2018
Yes
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Technology Department was responsible for providing all aspects of project management and engineering leadership for the experiment’s construction phase, as well as vital technical and organisational support throughout its running period.

Yes

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Inside the experimental hall, the spectrometer is being lowered into place from an overhead gantry crane, while two engineers in hardhats are supervisin<span id='ms-rterangeselectionplaceholder-end'></span>g its exact placement. The spectrometer looks like a long cylinder of metal with boxes and connectors on top, and a circular connector on the front with two fan-shaped structures coming out of a central boss.

Upstream Spectrometer beeing lifted into place at the start of MICE integration

STFC
​MICE - Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment - is an experiment hosted by STFC on behalf of the International MICE Collaboration and is carried out at RAL’s ISIS facility.

MICE is a demonstration experiment intended to show that the volume occupied by  a muon beam can be reduced, or ‘cooled’; this would establish the feasibility of muon colliders and neutrino factories for future particle physics research.

STFC Technology was responsible for providing all aspects of project management and engineering leadership for the experiment’s construction phase, almost from its inception in 2005, as well as vital technical and organisational support throughout its running period.

The experimental and project work encompassed a wide range of technical disciplines, from heavy civil engineering through to precise detector building. In practice, this meant taking possession of an old accelerator hall in ISIS, suitably adapting it and then integrating in it a number of large superconducting and conventional magnets, a range of particle identification detectors, two superconducting spectrometer solenoids containing advanced scintillating fibre trackers, and a large magnetic field return yoke. A significant fraction of this equipment was contributed by the international collaboration, which is literally world-wide.
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Inside the experimental hall, the focus coil is suspended from an overhead gantry crane and nearly lined up with the end of the spectrometer in front and another cylindrical beamline component behind. The focus coil looks like a squat cylinder with a connecting arrangement at either end, and a box-shaped structure on top bristling with connectors. In front are the team of engineers, hard hats off, all facing the camera. 

Installing the first focus coil in the MICE beamline in 2014

STFC
As well as the above, STFC Technology held sole responsibility for the two superconducting focus coil magnets, the muon decay solenoid and its cooling plant, the PPS, and the design and implementation of the liquid hydrogen absorber, one of MICE’s key scientific components; in particular, this involved a highly complex and lengthy technical and safety engineering exercise.

STFC Technology was also responsible for the pion target engineering. This demanded incredibly high standards of reliability and required novel applications of tribology and advanced techniques, not only in design, manufacture and fabrication, but in diagnosis and testing

None of this would have been possible without successful co-operation between Technology at DL and RAL, ISIS and the MICE community. For example, all of the electrical and controls engineering expertise was provided by the DL and ISIS electrical groups; this was vital to the success of the overall commissioning and testing of the experimental equipment, and the assistance from ISIS was absolutely key to the successful hydrogen safety case, and the subsequent implementation of the hardware.​

Contact: Projects and Mechanical Engineering ​ Group
Ian Wilmut​
Tel: 01235 445864​​​

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