Isis project near completion

In May 2005 Corus won a multi million pound contract to supply the radiation shield for the ISIS second target station (TS2) project at Chilton in Oxfordshire. Now, nine months later the contract is making good progress and with engineering and structural fabrication work near completion the trial build is underway on our Scunthorpe site.

UK to Australia in less than one tenth of a second

Isis is the world’s largest spallation neutron source and has been operating for over 20 years. It is now expanding, doubling its size through the construction of this second target station.  The particles that the target station will be bombarded with will travel at 80% of the speed of light which is equivalent to travel to Australia from the UK is less than one tenth of a second!

The complex TS2 design includes a 12m diameter, 7m high cylinder shaped monolith that acts as radiation shielding, with viewing ports and shutter assemblies located in the structure.

Adding value to steel

Corus are constructing TS2 from over 900 shaped profiles made from 300mm steel slab profile cut in the structural workshops and 1,500 tonnes of iron and steel castings.

Trial assembly is now underway on a specially prepared civil foundation in the Heavy Section Mill, Scunthorpe. This represents a key milestone in the contract and will aid in the development of the final construction method to be used at the clients site. This is also a chance for Corus to put their engineering skills to the test and enable the operability of shutter arrangements to be proven.

The next stage of the project once the trial build has been completed, is to carefully dismantle the structure and transported to the Rutherford Appleton Laboratories in Chilton. Corus will then install the shield into its final location where it will be grouted and clad in concrete.

The whole project is an excellent example of Corus adding value to its Scunthorpe Cast Products’ steel.

Designing for the environment

Isis provided conceptual designs, which were then turned into a detailed design in the drawing offices of Corus Northern Engineering Services. Corus influenced the shielding structure during the design stages buy suggesting that all plate sections other than the 300mm slab should be made from special low manganese steel. This significantly improves the environmental issues of the monolith life cycle with 99% of the structure designed in the low radiation steel.