Despite snow and freezing rain and even the gloom of night, the biggest of the Facility for Rare Isotope Beam’s concrete placements happened March 3 at Michigan State University.
In total, more than 350 trucks dumped nearly 3,600 cubic yards of concrete into the a section of the project’s linear accelerator tunnel.
This was the third and largest of the concrete placements of the project.
By the numbers:
- In preparation, about 260 tons of reinforcing steel has been placed over the past month.
- The nearly 3,600 cubic yards of concrete is enough to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool or to cover a football field 2-feet thick.
- When complete, 13,400 square feet of concrete will measure 14-feet thick.
FRIB is a new scientific user facility for nuclear science, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science and operated by MSU. Supporting the mission of the Office of Nuclear Physics in DOE-SC, FRIB will enable scientists to make discoveries about the properties of rare isotopes in order to better understand the physics of nuclei, nuclear astrophysics, fundamental interactions, and applications for society, including in medicine, homeland security and industry.
For information on the project, visit http://frib.msu.edu/.