Engineering the Workplace by Mike Perricone
"Physics on the prairie" calls up images of sweeping natural vistas, of high skies, grasslands and wildlife.
Physicists on the prairie, however, tend to do their best work indoors, with plenty of heat, water and electrical outlets. It all starts with a building, and buildings are just the start of the responsibilities for Fermilab's Facilities Engineering Services Section.
If the infrastructure--the pipes, the plumbing, the power cables, the heating and cooling, the roads and buildings, the intricate pond network--on the frontier of high-energy physics functions smoothly in Run II, it will mean FESS has done its job; if there's a glitch anywhere, FESS will be on the job. Immediately, if not sooner.
"If a call goes out because of a problem at 2 a.m., our people are right there. No questions asked," says David Nevin, head of the nearly 150 engineers, architects, technicians, carpenters, janitors and support people staffing FESS.
FESS sees its mission as no less than the safeguarding of Fermilab science.
"It is absolutely critical that the experiments remain `up,' that they're able to collect good information and capture good interactions," Nevin says. "Any time an experiment cannot perform that task, billions of pieces of valuable information are being lost. That's it--they're gone.
"Our job, as far as any function of infrastructure, is to ensure that losses of information are at an absolute minimum. We know we can't achieve zero losses, but our mission is to drive that number as close to zero as possible."
While the detectors and the accelerator complex have been virtually reinvented for Run II, much of the laboratory's infrastructure has served for three decades and is reaching its design limit. At that stage, anything can happen, and often does. Some of the major FESS projects to make aging infrastructure serve frontier physics:
FESS does much of its work behind the scenes. Some equipment had to be serviced before Run II could start, because it wouldn't be accessible once the accelerators were running. The run couldn't begin without all power and water utilities fully operating. The ponds, circulating the cooling water for magnets and electronic components around the lab, must be maintained at the proper levels, temperatures and evaporation rates.
FESS makes it all work. Turn on the lights, set the thermostat, and have some fresh coffee. Physics on the prairie feels just like home. |
last modified 3/16/2001 by C. Hebert email Fermilab |
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