Image credit: FRIB.
The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) Project, which was awarded two years ago to Michigan State University by the US Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC) is making significant progress towards start-up in 2020. An important milestone was passed in September 2010 when DOE-SC approved the preferred alternative design in Critical Decision-1 with an associated cost up to $614.50 million and a schedule range from the autumn of fiscal year 2018 to spring of 2020.
When FRIB becomes operational, it will be a new DOE national user facility for nuclear science, funded by the DOE-SC Office of Nuclear Physics and operated by Michigan State University. FRIB will provide intense beams of rare isotopes – short-lived nuclei not normally found on Earth. The main focus of FRIB will be to produce such isotopes, study their properties and use them in applications to address national needs. FRIB will provide researchers with the technical capabilities not only to investigate rare isotopes, but also to put this knowledge to use in various applications, for example in materials science, nuclear medicine and the fundamental understanding of nuclear material important to stewardship of nuclear-weapons stockpiles.
An optimization from the layout initially proposed for FRIB to the preferred alternative design moves the linac from a straight line extending to the northeast through Michigan State University’s campus to a paperclip-like configuration next to the existing structure at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL). The linac will have more than 344 superconducting RF cavities in an approximately 170 m-long tunnel about 12 m underground and will accelerate stable nuclei to kinetic energies of a minimum of 200 MeV/nucleon for all ions, with beam power up to 400 kW. (Energies range from 200 MeV/nucleon for uranium to above 600 MeV for protons.)
The Critical Decision (CD)-2 review to approve the performance baseline is planned for spring 2012 and the CD-3 review to approve the start of construction is planned for 2013. The selected architect/engineering firm and FRIB construction manager are exploring options to advance civil construction to the summer of 2012.
Recent meetings between NSCL and FRIB User Groups have put a merger in the works, expected to be initiated this year with the final merger for more than 800 members and functions by the end of the year or early in 2012.
• For more information on the FRIB project, see www.frib.msu.edu. For more about the FRIB User Group, see www.fribusers.org.
