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Building Magnets at Brookhaven National Laboratory: A Condensed Account

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Abstract

The development of superconducting wire and cable in the late twentieth century enabled high-field magnets and thus much higher beam-collision energies in accelerators. These higher collision energies have allowed experimentalists to probe further into the structure of matter at the most fundamental, subatomic level. The behavior of the early universe, where these high energies prevailed, and its evolution over time are the realm their experiments seek to investigate. The subject has aroused the curiosity of the public as well as scientists and has facilitated the support needed to build and operate such expensive machines and experiments. The path forward has not been easy, however. Success in most projects has been mixed with failure, progress with ineptitude. The building of high energy accelerators is mostly a story of capable people doing their best to develop new and unusual technology toward some defined goal, facing both success and failure along the way. It is also a story of administrative imperatives that had unpredictable effects on a project’s success, depending mostly on the people in the administrative roles and the decisions that they made.

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Fig. 1

Source: Brookhaven National Laboratory, Magnet Division

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Source: Brookhaven National Laboratory

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Source: Brookhaven National Laboratory

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Source: Brookhaven National Laboratory

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Credit: Courtesy of the AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Physics Today Collection

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Source: Photograph courtesy of FNAL

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Source: Brookhaven National Laboratory

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Source: Brookhaven National Laboratory

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Source: Wall Street Journal, reprinted with permission from the Cartoon Features Syndicate

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Source: Brookhaven National Laboratory

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Source: Brookhaven National Laboratory

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Source: Brookhaven National Laboratory

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Source: Brookhaven National Laboratory

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Photograph courtesy of the Northrop Grumman Corporation

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Source: Brookhaven National Laboratory

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Source: Data supplied by NGC under contract terms.

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Source: Brookhaven National Laboratory

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Source: Brookhaven National Laboratory

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Source: Courtesy of CERN

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Source: Brookhaven National Laboratory

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Source: Brookhaven National Laboratory

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Notes

  1. A quench is the sudden transition from the superconducting state to the normal, resistive state in a current-carrying conductor, marked by a rapid increase in resistance as the quench spreads from its point of origin to the rest of the conductor. Quenches are usually caused by motion of the conductor in the field of the magnet.

  2. Training in superconducting magnets is repeated quenching to progressively higher currents until a magnet reaches its current limit, a plateau below (not good) or at (good) the maximum current it could carry as determined by lab measurement of the conductor (short sample test).

References

  1. The history of the development of superconducting materials that could be used to make wire and cable for magnets is recounted in T. G. Berlincourt, “Superconducting Niobium-Titanium: Enabler for Affordable MRI and the Search for the Higgs Boson,” Physics in Perspective 17 (2016) 334–53.

  2. A summary of all RHIC data runs, which began in the year 2000, can be found at Brookhaven National Laboratory, “Run Overview of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider,” accessed February 19, 2014, http://www.agsrhichome.bnl.gov/RHIC/Runs/.

  3. S. Wojcicki, “The Supercollider,” pt. 1 “The Pre-Texas Days”; pt. 2 “The Texas Days,” Reviews of Accelerator Science and Technology 1 (2008), 259–303; 2 (2009), 265–301. These excellent accounts give a comprehensive overview of the SSC project, though they perforce miss much of the detailed effort and interactive endeavor that characterized the technical work. References to other narratives can be found in the Wojcicki volumes. Additional accounts have appeared in the years since then.

  4. Brookhaven National Laboratory, “Courses on the Superconducting Accelerator Magnets with Ramesh Gupta as One of the Instructors,” https://www.bnl.gov/magnets/Staff/Gupta/scmag-course/index.htm. This reference is to various US Particle Accelerator Schools, in particular the 2001 School held at Rice University in Houston. In addition, Millicent (Penny) Ball and her colleagues developed and marketed, with DOE funding, a CD-ROM tutorial describing the design, engineering, and building of superconducting magnets after the SSC Laboratory, where she had been working, was closed.

  5. Nicholas Samios, BNL memo, July 11, 1983, in author’s possession.

  6. “BNL Looks to the Future,” Brookhaven Bulletin 37, no. 18 (July 15, 1983), https://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/bulletin/1947-1995/1983/15071983.pdf. The ISABELLE/CBA saga is well described in Robert P. Crease, “Quenched! The ISABELLE Saga,” 2 pts, Physics in Perspective 7, no. 3 (2005), 330–76; no. 4 (2005), 404–52.

  7. Mark Barton, personal communication to the author.

  8. J. Herrera, H. Kirk, A. Prodell, and E. Willen, “Magnetic Field Measurements of Superconducting Magnets for the Colliding Beam Accelerator,” presentation at the 12th International Conference on High Energy Accelerators, FNAL, August 11–16, 1983 and BNL-33487.

  9. William J. Broad, “A Requiem for ISABELLE,” Science 216, no. 4542 (1982), 158.

  10. Robert P. Crease and Charles C. Mann, “Gambling with the Future of Physics,” New York Times Magazine, December 5, 1982.

  11. The eventual success of this superconductor improvement effort is recounted in a later paper: R. Scanlan, “The Evolution of Tooling, Techniques, and Quality Control for Accelerator Dipole Magnet Cables,” Applied Superconductivity Conference, Chicago, August 1992 and LBL-32635.

  12. A uniform field is important for beam stability in an accelerator. The first important non-linearity in a dipole magnet is a sextupole field, which increases in strength with the square of the coil radius. Therefore, a larger coil radius will naturally have a more uniform field at small radii, other things being equal.

  13. An abbreviated description of the BNL 50 mm dipole design, which was based on the final design of a long series of preceding 40 mm aperture magnets, is available in M. Anerella et. al., “Construction and Test Results from 15 m-Long, 50 mm Aperture SSC Collider Dipole Magnets,” in Supercollider 4, ed. John Nonte (New York: Springer Science+Business, 1992), 535–50 and BNL-48140.

  14. William J. Broad, “Giant Atom Smasher Encounters Vexing Technical Obstacles,” New York Times, December 13, 1988.

  15. B. Goss Levi and B. Schwarzschild, “Super Collider Magnet Program Pushes toward Prototype,” Physics Today 41, no. 4 (1988), 17.

  16. M. Anerella, A. K. Ghosh, E. Kelly, J. Schmalzle, E. Willen (BNL); J. Fraivillig, J. Ochsner, D. J. Parish (DuPont), “Improved Cable Insulation for Superconducting Magnets,” Particle Accelerator Conference, May 1993, Washington, DC and BNL-48532.

  17. J. Skaritka et al., “Development of the SSC Trim Coil Beam Tube Assembly,” PAC87, March 1987, Washington, DC and BNL-39615; P. Wanderer, J. Herrera, P. Thompson, E. Willen, “Performance of R&D Sextupole Trim Coils for SSC Dipoles,” PAC87, March 1987, Washington, DC and BNL-39612.

  18. C. L. Goodzeit, M. D. Anerella, G. L. Ganetis, “Measurements of Internal Forces in Superconducting Accelerator Magnets with Strain Gauge Transducers,” IEEE Transactions on Magnetics 25, no. 2 (1989), 1463–68.

  19. G. Ganetis, J. Herrera, R. Hogue, J. Skaritka, P. Wanderer, E. Willen, “Field Measuring Probe for SSC Magnets,” Particle Accelerator Conference, Washington, DC, March 16–19, 1987.

  20. Claus Rode, “Review: Lillian Hoddeson, Adrienne Kolb, and Catherine Westfall, Fermilab—Physics, the Frontier and Megascience, Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2008,” Cold Facts 26, no. 2, (2010): 30.

  21. Technology was changing rapidly in the 1980s with the advent of personal computers. At that time, central computers running Fortran were in heavy use for designing magnets, for analyzing data, or for storing data. Jobs were submitted with decks of cards, since those operating systems could not be engaged with remote terminals. Time sharing, now ubiquitous, was available on only a few computers. Physicists and engineers employing differential equations and using desk calculators solved numerical problems. Graph paper of all types was in plentiful supply. Small laboratory computers were widely used for controlling equipment and for collecting data in the lab, in particular VAX machines made by DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation). Networks for sending data to another building existed but were mostly home-made at BNL. Cell phones did not exist. Word processing was in its infancy; papers were typed by secretaries on typewriters. They often had to make carbon copies, even though Xerox copiers were widely available. Diagrams and figures for papers to be published were drawn according to strict professional standards by dedicated draftsmen/women, a service the lab provided for a fee. In the MD, a room full of draftsmen/women working at drafting tables using pencil and paper was required to make all the engineering drawings required by Central Shops or outside vendors to fabricate parts. At meetings, talks were given using transparencies made by hand or Xeroxed pages. This all began to change as small but increasingly powerful computers and workstations became available; today few of the old methods remain.

  22. The Particle Accelerator Conferences (PAC) and the International Industrial Symposium on the Super Collider (IISSC) meetings were the major venues for reporting results and interacting with the larger community.

  23. Author’s personal notes.

  24. The sequence of events that led to this sorry development is somewhat convoluted and is well covered by Wojcicki, The Supercollider (ref. 3).

  25. G. Voss, T. Kirk (editor), "Report of the SSC Collider Dipole Review Panel," June 1989, SSC-SR-1040.

  26. Author’s personal notes.

  27. Author’s personal notes.

  28. R. C. Gupta, S. A. Kahn, and G. H. Morgan, “SSC 50mm Dipole Cross Section,” in Supercollider 3, ed. John Nonte (New York: Springer Science+Business, 1991), 587–600 and BNL-45290.

  29. J. Muratore et al., “Construction and Test Results from 1.8 m-Long, 50 mm Aperture SSC Model Collider Dipoles,” in Supercollider 4, ed. John Nonte (New York: Springer Science+Business, 1992), 559–74 and BNL-47852 and SSCL-Preprint-94.

  30. E. Willen, “Hadron Collider at the Highest Energy and Luminosity,” presentation at the INFN Eloisatron Project 34th Workshop, Erice, Sicily, November 1996 and BNL-64183. The cost per Tesla meter quoted here, $2,777, is 3.2% higher than that given in the reference in order to adjust for two items previously omitted: the cost of Kapton CI cable wrap and the cost of welding wire.

  31. H. Hahn, RHIC Magnet Design Study, RHIC-PG-9, November 1983. This paper first listed the basic machine parameters, labeled “tentative,” as follows for beam energy 100 GeV: dipole field 3.3 T, 20:1 energy range, ring energy ratio 2.5:1, magnet aperture 3 inches, magnet length 4.4 m. Several months earlier, there had been a task force at BNL that considered physics goals for the developing interest in heavy ion physics and general machine requirements to accomplish those goals: “Report of Task Force for Relativistic Heavy Ion Physics,” ed. T. Ludlam & A. Schwarzschild, August 30, 1983, RHIC-PH-1 and BNL-101397. Additional discussions and work led to the parameters finally used for the machine design.

  32. A “Temple Review” was a thorough review of a proposed new project by a committee of cognizant individuals appointed by DOE and chaired at that time by Dr. L. Edward Temple. This particular review was requested by Dr. David Hendrie, Director of DOE’s Division of Nuclear Physics, Office of Energy Research. Temple was Director of Construction, Environment, and Safety at DOE. The committee was requested to “perform an assessment of RHIC’s technical objectives and scope cost, schedule and management as well as to evaluate its readiness for inclusion in the FY 1989 Congressional Budget Request.” Beyond these assessments, the committee was asked to “make recommendations regarding the project’s scope, cost and schedule baselines.” A review of this type was taken quite seriously at BNL, for Temple had a reputation as a stern taskmaster who demanded thorough, logical and technical presentations. He lived up to this reputation at BNL; it was stressful but ultimately rewarding to go through one of his reviews because he himself was knowledgeable and fair-minded. These reviews were in later years ably conducted by his deputy Dr. Daniel Lehman, beginning in 1991.

  33. G. Morgan, “Final Report of the Task Force on the RHIC Iron Specification,” https://www.bnl.gov/magnets/magnet_files/Publications/mdn-420-30.pdf.

  34. M. D. Anerella, D. H. Fisher (BNL); E. Sheedy, T. McGuire (NGC), “Industrial Production of RHIC Magnets,” IEEE Transactions on Magnetics 37 no. 4, (1996), 2059–64.

  35. D. Fisher, M. Anerella, and P. Wanderer, “Successful Partnership Between Brookhaven National Laboratory and Northrop Grumman Corp. for Construction of RHIC Superconducting Magnets,” presentation delivered at MT-16, Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, September 26–October 2, 1999 and BNL-72167.

  36. M. Anerella et al., “The RHIC Magnet System,” Nuclear Instruments and Methods A 499 (2003), 280–315. See also Brookhaven National Laboratory, “Courses on the Superconducting Accelerator Magnets” (ref. 4).

  37. J. Muratore, A. Jain, M. Anerella, J. Cozzolino, G. Ganetis, A. Ghosh, R. Gupta, M. Harrison, et al., “Test Results for LHC Insertion Region Dipole Magnets,” in Proceedings of the 2005 Particle Accelerator Conference, ed. C. Horak (Knoxville, TN, 2005), 3106–8 and BNL-74831.

  38. Needless to say, there was a need for thorough planning and good liaison between the MD and CERN to ensure that our magnets would fit their interfaces, that they would meet CERN’s requirements and expectations, that they would be available when needed for their schedule. Our contacts at CERN were physicists Ranko Ostijic and Tom Taylor as well as cognizant CERN engineers. For BNL, mechanical engineer Steve Plate led the effort to interface with CERN.

  39. E. Willen, R. Gupta, E. Kelly, G. Morgan, J. Muratore, R. Thomas, “A Helical Magnet Design for RHIC,” PAC97, Vancouver, May 1997 and BNL-69117.

  40. E. Willen, M. Anerella, J. Escallier, G. Ganetis, A. Ghosh, R. Gupta, M. Harrison, A. Jain, A. Luccio, W. MacKay, A. Marone, J. Muratore, S. Plate, T. Roser, N. Tsoupas, P. Wanderer, “Superconducting Helical Snake Magnet for the AGS,” PAC05, Knoxville, May 2005 and BNL-74868.

  41. Katie Hafner, “Paul Baran, Internet Pioneer, Dies at 84,” New York Times, March 28, 2011, A25.

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Acknowledgments

I wish to extend my thanks to my colleagues Mike Anerella, George Ganetis, Ramesh Gupta, and Peter Wanderer for their careful reading of this manuscript and their helpful suggestions for corrections and improvements.

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  1. Brookhaven National Lab, B902, Upton, NY, 11973, USA

    Erich Willen

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Correspondence to Erich Willen.

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Erich Willen is a physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory, where he was the Head of the Magnet Division during the years described in this article.

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Willen, E. Building Magnets at Brookhaven National Laboratory: A Condensed Account. Phys. Perspect. 19, 227–290 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-017-0204-9

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