NIU physicists, engineers collaborate for Fermilab project

by Tom Parisi

NIU physicists and mechanical engineers have formed a collaboration to support development of the next generation of detectors at the Fermilab Scintillator Detector Development Laboratory.

The collaboration formally is between the Northern Illinois Center for Accelerator and Detector Development (NICADD), based at NIU, and the university's Department of Mechanical Engineering. Mechanical engineers will assist NICADD scientists in designing equipment needed in scintillator production.

A scintillator is a device, usually made of plastic injected with dye, that glows when it is hit by high-energy particles or photons. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, located near Batavia, is developing new particle detectors to be used in experimental high-energy physics.

The federal laboratory already is home to the most powerful particle accelerator in the world, the Tevatron Collider. Fermilab's exploration of the subatomic world, including its discovery of the top quark, has had great impact on the field of high energy and accelerator physics. Technology developed at the laboratory is now being used in the medical and imaging industries. Accelerator scientists also have developed machines for cancer therapy.

Established last year to help develop a new generation of particle accelerators and detectors at Fermilab, NICADD recently accepted a bid to purchase a $560,000 extrusion line to produce scintillator plastic used in particle detection. The extruder will be housed and operated at Fermilab and operated jointly by the federal laboratory and NICADD.

The new equipment offers an economical way to produce novel shapes and configurations of detectors.

"Scintillator detectors have been around for a long time," said NIU physicist Gerald Blazey, who serves as co-director of NICADD. "But we're trying to find a way to economically produce mass quantities of scintillator detectors that will serve as components or modules for the next generation of particle accelerators, which will be very large. The extruder would pump out lengths of readymade scintillator material that could be cut and machined into these components.

"The collaboration represents an outstanding opportunity for NICADD to benefit from NIU faculty expertise," Blazey added. "And it's a great opportunity for the mechanical engineering department to build a strong program around extruder operation and die design."

The key part of the production process for scintillator detectors is the metal die used to shape the final product. Historically, the design and manufacture of these dies has been an art marked by redesigns and dependent on the die-maker's experience.

The NIU mechanical engineering department has formed a group of two faculty and two graduate assistants to design dies through advanced computing and simulation techniques. NICADD, the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the College of Engineering and Engineering Technology will support the personnel.

"This is a perfect fit for our department," said Simon Song, NIU mechanical engineering chair.

"The die design requires expertise in computational fluid mechanics, and we have faculty members who are experts in this area," he said. "Also, both graduate and undergraduate students will benefit from the collaboration. Graduate students working on this project will receive financial support and get the opportunity to work in a cutting-edge area of research. At the same time, the software we acquire for the research will be used in undergraduate teaching."