Building concept
The SLS building has the shape of a doughnut with an outer diameter of 138 m, an inner diameter of 32 m and a height of 14 m.
The whole building is "floating" on a 12m thick layer of gravel, formed during the last glacial period. The wooden roof of the building, as well as a 16 ton crane, is supported at the outside by 60 steel pillars and at the inside by the office building.
The SLS building has 5 different radial zones, starting from the inside:
The whole building is "floating" on a 12m thick layer of gravel, formed during the last glacial period. The wooden roof of the building, as well as a 16 ton crane, is supported at the outside by 60 steel pillars and at the inside by the office building.
The SLS building has 5 different radial zones, starting from the inside:
- office building with control room, labs and offices for 80 people on 3 levels;
- technical gallery with power supplies and RF-stations ;
- tunnel with concrete shielding walls, housing the storage ring, the linac and the booster;
- beamline area;
- outer ring with the 60 pillars, transport lane and air inlet system.
- mechanical separation of the 40 cm thick concrete floor, supporting the tunnel and the beamlines, from the roof and the walls of the building. To acchieve this, a 3 cm cut was made in the floor between areas 2 and 3 and between areas 4 and 5. Changing weather conditions, like wind and temperature, are thus hardly effecting the tunnel and the beamlines.
- stable temperature in the tunnel and the beamline area. A powerful air conditioning system, with 6 units placed just outside the building, together with a good isolation of the roof and the walls, keep the temperature inside the building at 23°±0.5° in winter and at 25°±0.5° in summer. Inside the accelerator tunnel 150 air jets produce a helical air stream, which enforces a stable temperature distribution, avoiding any hot spots. The average temperature in the tunnel is kept constant at 24° with a tolerance of only ±0.05°.
- An array of small windows lets some daylight into the building. These windows are strongly slanted however, to make sure that no direct sunlight is falling onto the floor.
- An auxiliary building houses the bulky equipment of the technical infrastructure, like pumps and storage tanks for the cooling system and the primary distribution of the electrical power.