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| "The light shines brilliantly these days at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL)". The Secretary of Energy sent these words to be conveyed at the formal opening of SPEAR3 on January 29. Today the Secretary of Energy, Spencer Abraham, has awarded the SPEAR3 Management team the Secretary's Excellence in Acquisition Award, presented in a ceremony at the DOE headquarters in Washington, DC. The Fourth Annual DOE Project Management Awards pay tribute to those teams or individuals who have achieved outstanding results through resourceful, innovative thinking and implementation. The SPEAR3 Upgrade Project, which replaced the original 30-year-old SPEAR storage ring with an entirely new low-emittance, high-current ring, was completed in Novem ber 2003 following an intense 7-month shutdown period. The $58M, 3-GeV SPEAR3 accelerator, funded jointly by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy, has an emittance of 18 nm-rad and will operate at currents up to 500 mA, providing 3rd generation light source capability for the SSRL user community. The first electron beams circulated in the new SPEAR3 ring in mid-December 2003 and the first experiments began in mid-March. At the end of the first user run (July 31), t he new accelerator had exceeded all expectations in performance - delivering 97.1% of the beam scheduled to users. Tom Elioff, Director of the SPEAR3 Upgrade Project reflected back on the evolution of the project and its aggressive installation schedule. He noted that at the beginning of the project, the SPEAR2 users and the SSRL Users' Organization Executive Committee welcomed the possibility of the enhanced SPEAR3 performance but were not enthusiastic about a major interruption in their research programs. A 6-month installation goal was requested. Some believed this to be near impossible due to the narrow confines of the tunnel. This was a major challenge as the process involved complete removal of SPEAR2, construction of a new heavy-duty reinforced concrete floor (20" thick), followed by installation, survey and alignment of all new SPEAR3 components. After careful planning a 7-month schedule evolved. The staff accomplished this within 7.5 months with beam turn in the followin g month--2 months ahead of the completion milestone. Richard Boyce, responsible for the magnet and supports acquisition, as well as installation, commented that the development and implementation of pre-assembled and tested components allowed for quick installation and connections of magnets, cable plant, vacuum system, and LCW; this along with the newest alignment technology gave the advantage to meet the planned schedule. "As a member of the SPEAR3 management team I find that when surro unded by knowledgeable staff who are given the authority and responsibility to accomplish their work, success is always close at hand," Boyce said. "The entire SPEAR3 project team deserves credit for the successful culmination of 4 years of intense effort and dedication which resulted in the remarkable accomplishment of meeting the extremely tight installation schedule and exceeding our first beam-to-users goal." "SPEAR3
is a remarkable resource that will enable state-of-the-art science in
numerous
fields," said SSRL Director and Stanford Professor Keith Hodgson. "The $58 million
project was completed on time and on budget. I thank the people whose extraordinary
teamwork made the project successful. In a remarkable accomplishment, the old
accelerator was dismantled, a new tunnel floor poured, SPEAR3 installed and commissioned,
and users back online-all within a mere 11 months." SPEAR3 incorporates the latest
technology-much of it pioneered at SSRL and SLAC-to make it competitive
with the
best synchrotron sources in the world. Observed Secretary Abraham in late January,
"This is the first time the Department of Energy and the National Institutes of
Health have joined in funding an accelerator research facility. I expect this
to be a long and productive collaboration whose impact will be truly far-reaching,
generating new knowledge and benefits to humanity." | |
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| For more information on the SPEAR award and the Upgrade
Project, go to: | |
