Overview
The school workshop, in its current form was originally established in 1960/61, when the G. O. Jones building was constructed. Back then the role of the workshop was to support low temperature, nuclear magnetic resonance, nuclear physics, and submillimetre-wavelength astronomy research groups. These disciplines required the use of a workshop capable of precision engineering. Prior to this physics had a small workshop in the basement of the Queen's building supporting the low temperature research group. Today the workshop continues to play a central role in supporting our research and development efforts in experimental science. Over time the requirements of the workshop have changed, driven by the change in research focus of the experimental groups within the school. In addition to supporting the research groups, the school workshop support our teaching laboratories. A number of undergraduate lab and final year project experiments benefit from the work of our engineers and technicians.
Recent examples of work that has been completed for our Particle Physics Research Center include making the heat exchanger for the ATLAS Semiconductor tracker (SCT). This device was built to extract heat from the silicon detector at the heart of the ATLAS experiment to ensure that it will withstand the radiation dose delivered by the LHC over its planned lifetime. As well as working on the heat exchanger a number of detailed components, and test equipment for the ATLAS SCT detector modules were made. More information can be found on the PPRC group research and development page.
Our Centre for Condensed Matter and Materials Physics uses the workshop to make a variety of components required for experiments. These range from heat exchangers required for furnaces, through to sample and lens holders. Our engineers and technicians have a broad range of skills and are able to lend their expertise to a wide range of problems. We are also working with carbon composite materials for future silicon detector construction research we are involved in. In the past the workshop has also made precision components for astroparticle experiments.
Capabilities
We have a core precision engineering facility comprising a HURCO CNC mill and a HAAS CNC Lathe. These two machines allow us to make prototypes of precision components, and when necessary produce small production runs of components with repetable precision. This capability is central to the Particle Physics Research Centre activities on detector development and construction work, and played a significant role in our contributions to the Semiconductor Tracker for the ATLAS experiment at CERN, that recently discovered a candidate particle for the Higgs boson. Our precision engineering capability also supports the Centre for Condensed Matter and Materials Physics.
In addition to the precision engineering component, there are a number of conventional machines that are used in order to make components that have less stringent constraints on reproducibility and design tolerances. The PPRC laboratories include a co-ordinate measuring machine, which provides the School with the ability to perform quality assurance surveys of the precision components we make.
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This facility has recently undergone a full refurbishment, which included the upgrade of our CNC equipment. With this recent investment the workshop is well placed to take on any challenge that our research teams can put to them.
The SPA workshop is able to take on work from outside of the department. Enquiries about getting work done in the workshop should be directed to Fred Gannaway. More complicated job requests may required schedulling discussions with our technical and engineering team.