• NAL starts work on Main Ring enclosure (October, 1969)
  

• The Gazebo (November, 1969)
  

• The Main Ring falls into place (April, 1970)
  

• Main Ring's final pre-cast section lowered into place (December, 1970)
  

• Final Main Ring magnet installation day and night task (April, 1971)
  

• Proton beam guided through entire NAL accelerator system (July, 1971)
  

• Main Ring staff works around-the-clock to tune accelerator (August, 1971)
  

• NAL accelerator reaches design energy (March, 1972)
  

• "NAL in transition" - Boyce McDaniel (May, 1972)
  

• 5th Anniversary. Recalling December 1, 1968... and The Interim... December, 1973...
  

• 0.5 TeV (May, 1976)
  

NAL STARTS WORK ON MAIN RING ENCLOSURE

	Main Ring 'ground-breaking' crews laugh as RRW exhibits ground worm he discovered in his diggings.

An informal ground-breaking to mark the start of construction of the Main Accelerator - the largest single component in the NAL accelerator system - was held under sunny skies on the NAL site at 11:30 a.m. Friday, October 3, 1969.

Robert R. Wilson, NAL's director, turned the traditional first shovel of earth for excavation to begin on the Main Accelerator Enclosure as members of the Main Ring staff and employees of D U S A F and sub-contractors watched.

The earth was firm and the atmosphere bright as the formal start of work began on the main accelerator enclosure for the world's largest scientific instrument - the 200 Billion Electron Volt proton synchrotron. The Main Accelerator enclosure will cover an area approximately four miles in circumference and 1.24 miles in diameter on the 6,800acre NAL grounds.

Actually, work had begun on the excavations for the Main Ring enclosure about 10 days before to take advantage of the Autumn weather's favorable atmosphere for construction workers.

Award Contract

A $3,428,917 contract had been awarded several weeks before by DUSAF to Schless-Madden Co., Inc., of Batavia, for Phase One of the Main Accelerator. It covers one-sixth of the Main Accelerator work.

Among others who took part in the ground-breaking were Parke Rohrer, DUSAF's project manager for NAL; Robert Schless and Thomas Madden, the sub-contractors, and Thomas Collins, Associate Director of NAL.

Work also is in progress on the Main Ring road and it is estimated that the entire Main Ring job, as of September 30, was three per cent completed - or, on schedule.

Start Main Ring Prototype

Meantime, members of the Main Accelerator staff working in the NAL village are developing prototypes of components for the Main Ring. The first 20-foot B-2 bending magnet has been completed in the NAL Laboratory. Valuable information has been obtained on coil tolerances in assembly, on assembly techniques, and on the mechanical behavior of the complete structure. This magnet will be used in testing of measuring systems and testing of the magnet installation vehicle.

A new and simplified method of fabricating bending-magnet coils, suggested by Robert Sheldon, is being tested. The coil for each magnet will be built as three separate coils, a 4-turn inner coil close to the beam where accurate tolerance must be maintained, and two outer "window" coil that can be built to standard commercial tolerances. All three coils will have saddle ends, rather than the previous T ends.

B1 Magnet Re-Designed

In the new design, the B2 magnets will have slightly altered dimensions. In the B-1 Magnet, it has been found that significant cost saving can be achieved by changing from a 24-turn to a 12turn coil. Magnetic redesign of the B1 magnet for this change is almost complete.

NAL has rented a building in West Chicago, north of the site, in which to produce inner coils.

Ernest Malamud has been appointed co-ordinator of a task team on controls to supervise the design of the control systems for the individual accelerators and for the accelerator or facility as a whole.

Linac Enclosure 75% Done

Meantime, work continues somewhat ahead of schedule on the Linear Accelerator Enclosure structure on which the first NAL groundbreaking was held last December 1. The walls and roof of the equipment gallery are almost complete. It is estimated that the effort is about 75 per cent finished.

On the Booster enclosure, the underground-enclosure structural work has been completed over most of the circumference and earth backfill placed. Work has begun on the linac extension and on electrical utilities in the enclosure. The Booster building is about 40 per cent completed and is on schedule.

Structural erection is underway on the Cross Gallery, with the work about 15 per cent completed.

In Radiation Physics, the first phase on the experiments to measure soil activation by strongly interacting high-energy particles has been underway. The preliminary results appear to show that there will be no special problems with contamination of underground water under the extraction straight section in the Transfer Hall.

Task Forces Started

Experimental Facilities: Task forces have been organized within the section to work in detail on various aspects of experimental utilization. There are task forces on Experimental Areas 1 and 2, on secondary-beam design, shielding, magnets, beam systems, detectors, and on spectrometer systems. These groups will start from the 1968 and 1969 Summer Study reports and develop firm plans in their areas of responsibility. A series of regular meetings is planned with physicists from other institutions to review and develop further the work of these task forces.

Notices to proceed have been issued on Phase II of the Cross Gallery for $678,428 and on Phase II of the Utility Plant for $760,000 and the Enclosure Piping ($137,000) in the Booster and Utility Plant areas.

A Theoretical Physics Section has been established at NAL. Five physicists have joined the Laboratory staff as the first members of this new group. David Gordon is the acting head.

On September 30, the Laboratory had a total of 520 employees. Of these, 126 were engineers and scientists.

Photo by Tony Frelo, NAL. The start of work on the Main Accelerator Enclosure at NAL was an inter-disciplinary affair. Here, the Engineers (in hard hats) meet with the Scientist - Administrator (holding shovel, bare-headed) in the midst of a former Illinois corn field after an informal ground breaking. Posing after breaking the earth are (left to right) Robert Schless, of Schless Construction Co.; Dr. Robert R. Wilson, NAL's director; E. Parke Rohrer, project manager for DUSAF, and Thomas Madden, contractor. The Schless-Madden joint venture is the contractor for the first phase of the Main Accelerator construction. In far left background stands Malamud, NAL physicist, as heavy machinery begins excavation.

"The Gazebo" the NAL Survey Tower, was developed by DUSAF and stands in the precise center of the Main Ring. It is elevated about 25 feet and the upper section rotates about 15 degrees so that sectors of the main component of the NAL accelerator system can be seen as the Main Ring is under construction.

THE MAIN RING FALLS INTO PLACE

The Main Accelerator is the largest single component in the NAL accelerator system. Protons will be injected into the Main Accelerator from the Booster at Eight Billion Electron Volts. The Booster is a rapid-cycling synchrotron, approximately 500 feet in diameter. The Main Accelerator is a synchrotron of 6,562 feet in diameter -- or 1.24 miles. Its circumference is approximately four miles. In the Main Accelerator, the protons will be accelerated to full energy. Initially, this energy will be 200 BeV, but more power supplies could be added later to increase the accelerator's peak energy to 400, or possibly even 500, BeV. This additional acceleration still would take place in the Main Accelerator. After reaching maximum energy, the protons are extracted and transported to experimental areas.

	An aerial view of one of the two casting yards on the NAL construction site. Main Ring sections are pre-cast in the cubicles at the left. They are stored in the field and transported by truck to the nearby Main Ring excavation as they are needed.

For months, members of the Main Accelerator system have been working with DUSAF engineers on the plans for the design and fabrication of the Main Accelerator sections. Each Main Ring section is nine feet in height, 10 feet wide and 10 feet in length.

Made of concrete, 10 inches thick, the sections are pre-cast in three sizes and assembled like a giant jig-saw. There will be about 2,000 sections in the completed ring. (A "protomain" -- a prototype of the Main Accelerator -- is located in the NAL Village as a model of a typical installation.) Work on the construction and installation of the Main Ring sections is being conducted by two contracting firms -- Schless-Madden, a joint venture, and Corbetta Construction Company of Illinois.

Here is a photographic layout showing the tunnel sections in various phases of construction and installation. Phase One of the Main Accelerator, the first super-period, is about 30 per cent complete. Work is beginning on Phase Two, the remaining five-sixths of the structure. The photos, by Tony Frelo and Mrs. Joan Maute, provide a spring time view of construction progress at NAL.

				Section C-5 takes its place in the biggest NAL circle. When complete, the Main Ring will contain about 2,000 sections.
	One section being lowered to the continuous cast-in-place concrete foundation at the bottom of the excavation.

	Tunnel sections being placed into the Main Ring enclosure at the National Accelerator Laboratory. When completed, the enclosure will be made up of about 2,000 of the 10 foot sections and will have a circumference of about 4 miles. March '70. NAL Photo.			The gradual curve of the giant Ring begins to take shape.

MAIN RING'S FINAL PRE-CAST SECTION LOWERED INTO PLACE

On January 2, 1970, DUSAF, the architect-engineer and construction management firm for the National Accelerator Laboratory, awarded a contract to the Corbetta Construction Company of Illinois, which has its headquarters in suburban DesPlaines. The contract was to construct the final five-sixths of the NAL Main Accelerator Enclosure.

	Physicist Ernest Malamud, Main Ring, is pleased as final section is put in place

NAL's main synchrotron will be housed in this ring-shaped enclosure approximately 20,600 feet in total length. The tunnel, which, incidentally, is located in both DuPage and Kane counties, is four miles in circumference and 1.24 miles in diameter. The "Main Ring," as it is called, will house 774 bending magnets and about 240 focusing magnets.

At approximately 4:00 p.m., Monday afternoon, November 30, the final pre-cast concrete section was placed in the Main Accelerator Enclosure. A beer and pizza party with Charles Marofske, NAL Personnel Manager, as maitre'd, followed for Corbetta, DUSAF and NAL staff members. A repeat of the "final closing" was held for the news media at 1:00 p.m. Tuesday, afternoon, December l.

It took ten minutes to mix the cement used to bind the pre-cast concrete section to the slab. Then the concrete was transported by hoist to workmen waiting in the tunnel area. In another 10 minutes, the effort was completed. Then Robert R. Wilson, NAL's Director, and E. Parke Rohrer, DUSAF Project Manager, scrambled down the muddy excavation to shake hands with cement finishers and laborers who had worked so hard to complete the enclosure several weeks before schedule.

"I was pleased especially by the efficiency and competence of the Corbetta workmen in their performance on the Main Ring Enclosure," said Parke Rohrer. He added that NAL had been fortunate, by and large, to have found a series of experienced professional sub-contractors to work on general construction of the Laboratory. He also thanked Corbetta and other sub-contractors for their cooperation in the NAL and DUSAF equal employment opportunity and affirmative action programs.

Corbetta was given its formal notice to proceed with construction on its $7,300,000 contract nearly 11 months ago. The first one-sixth of the Main Ring Enclosure had been constructed by the Schless-Madden Joint Venture, of Batavia, also hailed by Rohrer for their competence. Hundreds of workmen with varying skills have worked on the accelerator enclosure.

	Corbetta Construction Co. workmen prepare to spread grout to bind final pre-cast enclosure in NAL's Main Ring

The Main Ring Enclosure consists of 1,790 pre-cast concrete sections. Each section is nine feet high, 10 feet wide, 10 feet long and 10 inches thick. The sections are placed on a poured concrete slab approximately 20 feet below ground. Special vehicles are planned for moving equipment and personnel.

In the completed tunnel, accelerator magnets are located close to the outside wall, leaving an 86-inch clear space for vehicles and personnel. Above ground, utilities for the main accelerator will be distributed through 24 service buildings spaced uniformly along the inside perimeter of the ring. Each building will be about 2,000 square feet in area. Most already have been completed. They will contain magnet power supplies, cooling-water pumps, heat exchangers, vacuum-pump power supplies, ventilation equipment and circuitry for control multiplexing and transmission. Six utility buildings will contain additional equipment related to the cooling towers to be located nearby. The four-mile enclosure, along with associated service and access buildings, contains some 36,000 cubic yards of concrete. About 2,750 tons of reinforcing steel also were used in the enclosure. Tunnel excavation alone involved transporting about 960,000 cubic yards of earth. Earth shielding is being used to cover the entire enclosure and the entire tunnel will be covered in the next few weeks.

	An overview of the informal ceremony to observe the closing of the Main Accelerator with pre-cast concrete sections			E. Parke Rohrer, DUSAF's project manager, and RRW congratulate Corbetta workmen on completion of their work on four mile in circumference Main Ring Enclosure

FINAL MAIN RING MAGNET INSTALLATION DAY AND NIGHT TASK

It was 5:28 o'clock on Friday afternoon, April 16, 1971, when the final and 1,014th magnet was put into place in the Main Accelerator's four-mile ring. Two Atomic Energy Commission Chairmen - Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg, of the United States; and Andronik Petrosyants of the Soviet Union -- watched while Dr. Robert R. Wilson, Director, NAL, congratulated the Main Ring on the achievement of another NAL milestone.

The event took place less than six months after the final pre-cast concrete section was placed in the ring-shaped enclosure which totals approximately 20,600 feet in length. "It was a Herculean effort and I wish to thank all of my NAL colleagues as well as many sub-contractors and their employees for their team spirit which enabled us to achieve this milestone," said Ernie Malamud, Main Ring Section leader.

The fabrication, measurement and installation of the magnets was a day and night operation centered at NAL's Magnet Assembly building and at a plant in West Chicago. A number of records were set -- the production record was 12 magnets in one day with a weekly record of 56 magnets and 12 magnets in one day for magnetic measurements with a weekly record of 80 in one seven-day week.

Malamud congratulated the Magnet Assembly shop working under the direction of Will Hanson for their performance in the total effort. During the week that they fabricated and measured the magnets for the final emplacement, employees worked there from 5 a.m. until 4:30 p.m., after having been on a three-shift basis for an extended period. The West Chicago plant made a major contribution in refurbishing previously-fabricated bending magnets.

Last-day efforts at the Magnet Factory were full of hustle and bustle. The almost completed magnets were loaded on flat bed trucks while workmen continued with final touches such as cleaning and painting the magnets as Belding employees waited to haul them for final placement, about 20 feet below ground level in the Main Ring tunnel.

Among those involved in Magnet Assembly activities were Phil Rosenberg, Supervisor; Clarence Bowling, Assistant Supervisor; Raul Gonzales, Day Foreman, Magnet Assembly; Thomas Gutierrez, Night Foreman and Arthur Gilbertson, Technician. At West Chicago, those involved included Ted White, Manager; Ron Norton, Assistant Manager; Ralph Huggins, Chief Inspector; Donald Mizicko, Night Supervisor; Glenn Spaulding, Day Supervisor and Clayton Bossert, Chief Engineer. Jack Jagger was in charge of the magnet inspection and magnet reworking at both sites. At the site, Bob Sheldon is responsible for the installation of all Main Accelerator components and Tony Glowacki has coordinated the installation of magnets and all tunnel piping. Others involved included Tony Winchester and Joel Rosenberg, who assisted in magnet installation; Chuck Schmidt, Dean Krause and Fred McIntosh, Magnetic Measurements Group, and many, many others.

Each Main Ring bending magnet weighs approximately 12.5 tons and is 20 feet in length. The bending magnets are painted light and dark blue; there also are quadrupole magnets painted red which are four and seven feet in length. Now that the coil and magnet production groups have achieved one milestone, they are producing magnets for NAL's Experimental Facilities areas, as well as spares for the Main Ring. The rest of the Main Ring section is pushing a tight schedule to hook up the magnets, complete the vacuum system, connect power supplies and low conductivity water piping.

	Belding engineering workman, Ed Thomas, of Aurora, guides final 200-foot Main Ring bending magnet onto flat bed as Ernest Malamud, Section Leader, congratulates Main Ring members gathered at Magnet Assembly Shop upon the departure of the 1,014th magnet which completed the four-mile Main Accelerator magnet assembly. The event was the highlight of a 13-hour day for the Belding crew, NAL and the subcontractor employees in which 44 magnets were set to break the previous Laboratory record. Less than six months earlier, the last concrete section for the Main Ring tunnel was put into place.			The 1,014th and final magnet for NAL's Main Accelerator pauses for a few moments at the Sector A major vehicle access on the Ring Road. Members of the Main Ring gathered around it to commemorate the occasion. They are (L to R): Wally Pelczarski, coordinator of installation of vacuum systems; Barb Schlucter, Secretary; Jim O'Hara and Johnny Green, electronic technicians, magnet power supply; Vic Garzotto, in charge of welding all ring piping; Hal Landers, mechanical technician. In rear, standing: Tony Glowacki, coordinator of installation of main ring magnets and tunnel water and power piping systems and Frank Kleber, executive assistant, Main Ring.

PROTON BEAM GUIDED THROUGH ENTIRE NAL ACCELERATOR SYSTEM

	Oscilloscope trace of the first turn of the beam in the NAL Main Ring

The formal announcement was terse, but behind it there was almost unbelievable hard work and creativity. Physicists, engineers and technicians worked around the clock; even Nurses Dorothy Poll and Glenys Smith were on hand during the "owl shift" to observe and to assist, but, fortunately, they were not needed.

No one jumped up and down with joy; not even a champagne cork was popped. In the Control Room at the Central Laboratory area, there was an atmosphere of accomplishment, but not of celebration, because there was more work to be done in the weeks and months ahead before total victory could be acclaimed. In the Control Room, about 20 persons observed the tiny closed circuit television sets that seemed only to blink on and off, but which really were recording another milestone in the development of the National Accelerator Laboratory.

At mid-morning Wednesday, June 30, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and the Laboratory issued a brief statement. It read:

"A proton beam was guided through the entire National Accelerator Laboratory accelerator system for the first time at 6:44 a.m. CTD, Wednesday, June 30, 1971. The beam was accelerated to 7 BeV in the linear accelerator and the booster accelerator system and then 'coasted' through the largest component in the NAL accelerator system -- the main accelerator, which is four miles in circumference.

Present plans call for the main accelerator staff to continue beam studies until Thursday night and then to shut down for the holiday weekend. The next milestone facing the accelerator system crew is to accelerate the protons in the main ring, working up to the system's full original design energy of 200 billion electron volts."

Later, a look at the official log revealed a brief, light-hearted but significant observation by a physicist: "Only 50,000 more turns to go." Obviously the detection of the first beam through the entire NAL accelerator system was only the beginning of a new era and the beginning of the end of the first major phase of construction at NAL.

Don Young, Operations head, held several meetings after the first success. With his colleagues, he discussed various operational alternatives. One such meeting was held at 3:00 p.m. Thursday. Then it was decided to run the machine until at least midnight.

At 3:20 a.m. on Friday, July 2, 1971, Frank Cole, physicist working with Young's group, read a statement:

"Operation was shut down a few minutes ago at 3:15 a.m. During the operation, up to eight complete turns in the Main Ring were observed with some losses during this coasting. The operation is being shut down for the holiday weekend and will resume some time next week."

IN THE CONTROL ROOM: The Main Ring Control center was a quiet but intense locale of NAL activity last week as the first proton beam was sent around the Main Accelerator to achieve another NAL milestone. In this photo, taken a short time after the beam completed one turn through the Main Ring, several members of the NAL staff check the "evidence" in the official log book and also on the closed circuit television screens returning various data to physicists and engineers. From bottom to top they are: Barry Barnes, AI Maier, Ernie Malamud (back to camera), E.L. Goldwasser, Shigeki Mori, and Robert R. Wilson

Photo by Tony Frelo, NAL

MAIN RING STAFF WORKS AROUND-THE-CLOCK TO TUNE ACCELERATOR

	(L to R) Tony Winchester, Halbert Landers, (in cab) and George Hill operate the giant magnet handling device			(L to R) Tony Winchester, George Hill install a replacement magnet in the Main Ring Tunnel
Photo by Tony Frelo, NAL

The day and night efforts of many men and women are involved in the final efforts to get NAL's accelerator system "on the beam." They are uncovering and solving a number of problems, especially in the complex Main Accelerator -- the largest single component (four miles in circumference) in the NAL system. A partially collapsed vacuum chamber was found in a magnet. A piece of scrap copper was discovered to be shorting out turns of a coil. In spite of these and other technical problems, eight turns of the beam were circulated through the system at the end of June.

At 2:30 a.m. Sunday morning, August 1, a coasting beam was achieved in the Main Ring. Ernie Malamud, Main Ring, in a recent memorandum to all members of the Main Ring section, observed: "All of you contributed to the attainment of this significant milestone by your dedication and hard work."

Malamud's memorandum summarized how the coasting beam was obtained and what it means:

"Bringing the accelerator into operation consisted of a number of important steps: (1) an intensive period of tuning (from June 24 - July 2 this consisted of 180 hours of Main Ring Time; a single turn was achieved at 6:45 a.m., June 30, 1971; eight multiple turns were achieved at 3:20 a.m., July 2, 1971); (2) shut down for accelerator repairs and improvements (as was the case between July 2 and July 21); (3) an intensive period of tuning - from July 21 to August 1, 245 hours; (4) a coasting beam - achieved at 2:30 a.m., August 1, 1971."

"Future milestones planned in the Main Ring include: An accelerated beam; acceleration through transition (17.4 GeV); and, finally, acceleration to 200 GeV."

"During the two periods of intensive 7-day/week, 24-hour/day tuning the Injection System, Linac and Booster and Booster RF, furnished us a stable beam over 50% of the time. This is a remarkable record, attained by very hard work by the members of the Accelerator Operations Section."

"A short (1 micro-second) pulse of 7 GeV protons is injected once per second. When the beam "coasts," it means that it goes around and around the Main Ring hundreds and thousands of times along a stable equilibrium orbit inside the vacuum chamber. Many requirements are necessary for this to happen: (1) uniform field in all magnets; (2) good regulation in the power supply so the guiding magnetic field doesn't change during the time the beam is coasting; (3) proper gradients and alignment of the quadrupole magnets to keep the beam focussed; (4) good vacuum so not too many protons are "lost" on each circuit due to scattering out of the beam by residual gas."

The Main Ring's first circulating beam, on August l, was rapidly built up to over 10,000 turns. It is expected that initial acceleration tests can now begin.

There are more than 1,000 magnets in the Main Ring's earth-covered concrete tunnel most of which weigh about 13 tons each. In a new accelerator operation, it is expected, from time to time, that some changes in magnets will have to be made, for one reason or another. So, to expedite the replacement of magnets in the system, the Main Ring has a "magnet moving crew" under the direction of Bob Sheldon, a British-educated scientist who resides in nearby Geneva. Frank Kleber, executive assistant in the Main Ring, describes this crew as "our unsung heroes -- the men who come to the rescue at any hour of the day or night so that we can get the system back to work again."

On Wednesday night, August 11, the Main Ring Control room determined that there was a magnet failure in Sector D of the Main Accelerator. George Hill, who lives on Chicago's South Side, had left the Central Laboratory area for home at about 6:30 p.m. At 12:30 a.m., he received a telephone call to return to the Laboratory to determine just what was wrong in the tunnel. He arranged for three other members of his crew to be called back to work, too -- Vic Garzotto, of nearby Warrenville; Halbert Landers, of Aurora, and Tony Winchester, from Joliet.

They arrived at the Central Laboratory area beginning at about 1 a.m. and went down into the Main Ring tunnel. For nearly five hours, they worked in removing three magnets and then installing three others using a magnet handling vehicle designed by Wally Pelczarski of the Main Ring. It takes from 30 minutes to two hours to replace a magnet, depending upon its location in the Main Ring tunnel. In addition, another hour is used to weld it properly so that the vacuum and water connections are properly aligned. Others who assist in these tasks are Walt Limbaugh, Pete Surman and Jim Forester, all welders from the Machine Shop and vacuum technicians from the Main Ring supervised by Jim Klen.

It was the third time in less than a week that the "unsung heroes" had been called to work in fireman-like fashion. "We realize that we must respond quickly to these calls to replace magnets," says Hill. "We are working to make our crews very proficient at this task since it will become increasingly vital as time goes by to keep this $250,000,000 machine and its components operational and minimize down-time."

	George Hill directs the loading of a replacement magnet for the NAL Main Ring. Each of the more than one thousand 13-ton magnets in the Ring is now being checked as part of the operating schedule of the NAL Main Ring Section. The special magnet loading device was designed by Wally Pelczarski, designer, in the Main Ring Section
	Photo by Tony Frelo, NAL

NAL ACCELERATOR REACHES DESIGN ENERGY

	Robert R. Wilson, NAL Director, offers a toast at the celebration held in the lobby of the Main Control Room following achievement of 200 BeV acceleration at NAL			200 BeV victory in the NAL Main Control Room. Front row, seated (L to R), Francis T. Cole, Jeff Cannon, John Clarke. Standing (L to R) Dick Cassel, Ryuji Yamada, Bruce Strauss, Paul Evan, Will Hanson

	Victory in RF bldg. (L to R) Stan Tawzer, Lin Winterowd, Jim Griffin, K.C. Cahill, John Reid, Allan Fogle
	Donald E. Young, Accel. Section, and James R. Sanford, Assoc.Dir. for Program Plan., at the oscilloscope
	At the Booster console, (L to R) Ed Hubbard, Keith Meisner, Gerry Ortlieb
	R.R. Wilson, Paul Reardon, Dir.of Bus.Admin., Edwin L. Goldwasser, Deputy Director, wearing post BeV smiles

At 1:08 p.m. on Wednesday, March 1, 1972 employees of the National Accelerator Laboratory opened the door to a new era of understanding of the world in which we live when the NAL accelerator system accelerated a beam of hydrogen protons to the design energy of 200 billion electron volts (BeV). Scientists from all over the world will use the beam to conduct a variety of experiments that will yield new knowledge of the characteristics and interactions of the particles of the atom. The secrets uncovered will describe the "world of the small" with understanding that has been impossible without the NAL machine. Protons generated from hydrogen gas in a pre-accelerator moved in succession at increasing energy and intensity, through the linear accelerator, the booster synchrotron and finally into the Main Ring where they traveled around the 4-mile ring 70,000 times in 1.6 seconds receiving a 2.9 million electron volt boost of energy on each revolution until they attained an energy of 200 billion electron volts. Scientists using the machine accepted the challenge to explore the unknowns of the 1970's.

The event touched off an all-Laboratory celebration, representing successful achievement of goals set years ago in which every employee without exception was in some way involved.

The 200 BeV level was one of a series of milestones since January 1, 1972 that saw acceleration rise from 20 BeV on January 22nd to 53 BeV on February 4th and to 100 BeV on February 11th. After reaching 100 BeV, a readjustment of 26 power supplies in the Main Ring enabled the machine to climb to 200 BeV. The delicate tuning, the horrendous assignment of getting the hundreds, the thousands of component parts of the huge machine to synchronize in absolute precision brought many moments of great frustration in the last days of February. The effort was typified by events on the afternoon and evening of February 29th when, after easily reaching 55 BeV, further progress was delayed for more than 12 hours because of magnet problems.

On the morning of March 1, at 9:30 a.m., Robert R. Wilson, Laboratory Director, reported to employees on his testimony the' previous day before the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy in Washington, D. C., the first of two days of hearings on budgets of high energy physics projects in the U. S. financed by the federal government. He expressed disappointment that he had not been able to report achievement of 200 BeV to the congressmen. Physicist Ernest Malamud reported to the group on the substantial progress made on the accelerator since reaching 100 BeV. Both men explained that although things were going very well, the elusive 200 was lurking just beyond the collective NAL fingertips. Dr. Wilson closed the meeting urging staff members to get the news the Joint Committee wanted. Within a few hours he was able to report to Washington that the accelerator had in fact reached its design level of acceleration.

After correcting the problems with the magnets early on the morning of March 1, the operations crew in the Main Control Room, with physicist Francis T. Cole as chief went into action about 8:30 a.m. Jim Griffin, physicist, stationed in the RF building, some six blocks away, turned on all RF stations. The intercom dialogue between Cole and Griffin began. The correction in the relation of the rate of rise of current between the bending and the quadrupole magnets was put into effect on the previous night shift by physicists Donald and Helen Edwards, who felt that this might have accounted for the beam instability after 30 BeV that had been encountered in the few days previously. Cole, Griffin, and other members of the crew spent the morning tuning and adjusting the machine to compensate for the most recent alterations.

At 11:00 a steady, stable beam was achieved. By 11:30 beam had passed transition energy (17.4 BeV). According to Ed Gray, synchrotron physicist on duty at the main control console, from then on things just got better and better. A slight jolt to the system - a "quad bump" - gave the beam further intensity. At 12:30 p.m. the beam reached 167 BeV for the first time. More and more people clustered around the screen in the Control Room lobby, watching the narrow band that typifies the beam as it crept slowly to the right to match the triangular peak representing 200 billion electron volts of energy. By 1:00 the screen was completely hidden by a crowd of forty or more people. The ding-ding-ding of a bell signaled the coming of the 200 BeV pulse in the bi-modal ramp.

At the RF building, Jim Griffin recalls, all controls were in ideal positions, but the noise of the gathering crowd in the Control Room drowned out the warning bell on the intercom; his adjustments had to be cautious. Stan Tawzer, working with Griffin, watched the screen. At 1:03, Tawzer noted, "That one went all the way out," but they waited for the next pulse to be sure.

	Dr. Wilson (R) shaking hands with fellow employees. Dr. Goldwasser (ctr.), Harry Howe, Safety Off.(plaid shirt)
	Dr. Wilson pouring chianti for Shigeki Mori
	Dr. Goldwasser, Dr. Wilson, and Priscilla Duffield at the informal celebration
	Autographs for all (L-R) T.Glowacki, Goldwasser, D.Sutter, K.C.Cahill, Wilson, F.SchuIze, H.Batter, G.Moor

In the Control Room on the next pulse, someone in the hushed crowd said, "There it is!" and a rousing cheer filled the room at 1:08 pm!

On a desk in the lobby sat a carton with a white handwritten label reading, "For Ned Goldwasser...for 200 GeV celebration...from Al W... It's the correct brand. Tradition calls for 40 persons per bottle at lower energy machines...." Edwin L. Goldwasser, Deputy Director of the Laboratory, ordered the carton opened. The gift of chianti wine came a few days before from Al Wattenburg, professor of physics at the University of Illinois, who was one of the small group present at the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction achieved in 1942 by the team headed by Enrico Fermi, when a bottle of the same brand of chianti was passed among that group of pioneer nuclear scientists. Now, thirty years later, another group of jubilant scientists shared a major achievement in particle physics. Dr. Wilson and Dr. Goldwasser passed through the crowd filling paper cups, shaking hands, accepting and extending congratulations at every turn. Later, champagne that had waited for many months in the cafeteria cooler, was served in plastic goblets labeled "200 GeV"!

The entire Laboratory joined the gala celebration. That evening the night crew held their own celebration. Everywhere it was recognized as a "team" victory. Each person on site felt he had contributed. Since breaking of ground for the linear accelerator on December 1, 1968, all efforts have been bent over the 200 BeV goal. The interim happenings - the linac 200 MeV beam on December 1, 1970; the booster 8 BeV beam on May 20, 1971; the first Main Ring beam on June 30, 1971 - all were important stepping stones on the way to the achievement.

The Main Ring shut down for a short period beginning March llth to install the water cooling system that enabled the machine to run regularly at 200 BeV and probably higher levels. The decision to go to higher levels depends somewhat on the results achieved at the 200 level.

The next major achievement of the staff was the extraction of beam from the Main Ring to the experimental areas. This highly technical effort was headed by physicist Edward Bleser. The first experimental area to receive beam was the 30-inch Bubble Chamber group. Meanwhile, Experiment 36 began in the Main Ring vacuum chamber, jointly involving experimenters from NAL, Rockefeller University, The University of Rochester, and the Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna.

"NAL IN TRANSITION" - Boyce McDaniel

"We're in a transition phase," Dr. Boyce McDaniel observed, "between construction and operation. Our most important job is to make our machine run at its design specifications. Each day we know more than we did yesterday and we know with a little more certainty what's going to happen tomorrow."

	Boyce McDaniel

Dr. McDaniel's cautious optimism characterized the attitude of the NAL Accelerator Section in spring, 1972. Under Dr. McDaniel's leadership, this group faced such challenging tasks as achieving regular, effortless acceleration, raising beam intensity by a factor of 1,000, and then extracting a high quality beam to the experimental areas. "The job we had is much less glamorous than reaching 200 BeV for the first time, but it is certainly just as important," he said.

Dr. McDaniel and his wife, Jane, came to NAL on leave from Cornell University where he served as Head of the Laboratory of Nuclear Studies. He had been associated with Cornell since 1938 except for a time at Case Western Reserve University (1938-1940), a year at the Radiation Laboratory of MIT, and three years at Los Alamos (1943-45). He was appointed assistant professor of physics at Cornell in 1945, professor in 1956.

Dr. McDaniel brought to NAL a working knowledge of synchrotron development, gained from 25 years' experience in this field at Cornell where a progression of electron synchrotrons was built, beginning with a 300 MeV machine, and including the first machine to apply the strong focusing principle. Cornell's 10 BeV electron synchrotron, completed in 1967, is the largest in the world.

Dr. McDaniel had done experimental work, as well as development, but he said, "I'm here at NAL primarily to help get this complex system running."

This phase of NAL development saw the permanent operating structure emerge, he felt. "I have found the people here to be remarkably cooperative and responsive. That will certainly make it easier to get the job done."

Fifth Anniversary
Recalling December 1, 1968... And The Interim... December, 1973

On December 1, 1968, a hardy group of 1,000 people tramped through a blinding snowstorm to the corner of the Arthur Schimelphenig farm, on the border of Illinois' Kane and DuPage counties near Batavia, to see the first spade of earth turned in the construction of the National Accelerator Laboratory. Five years later, in December 1973, the institution those people envisioned that winter day is a reality. The world's largest proton accelerator is almost complete and is being used by hundreds of experimenters from around the world in their search for the secrets buried in the heart of the atom.

The prairies, where long ago Indians hunted and more recently homesteaders staked out fertile fields, are now witnessing a new era in man's search for knowledge of the universe in which he lives. Those who have used these lands before have been followed by the staff and associates of the National Accelerator Laboratory, using the most advanced technology in the world to explore the inner structure of all matter, for the benefit of the generations yet to come.

Linear Accelerator

Linac tanks were built in the NAL Village (below), then moved (above) to permanent location.

	The linear accelerator (right) was the first NAL component to be started, the first to be finished. Since December, 1970, the linac has been providing protons for the first stage of acceleration of the NAL beam.

The Booster Accelerator

In December, 1970, the last Booster magnet was installed in the completed tunnel begun in 1969. Staff members continue to improve performance of the Booster.

Since May, 1971, the Booster Accelerator has taken 200 million electron volt protons from the Linac and "boosted" their energy to 8 billion electron volts. They are then injected into the Main Accelerator. The Booster synchrotron is about 500 feet in diameter. Twelve "bunches" of Booster protons are required to fill the Main Accelerator.

Main Ring

Construction of the four-mile concrete circle comprising the tunnel of the NAL Main Accelerator provided many unique challenges. The Main Ring reached its design energy of 200 billion electron volts on March 1, 1972, now operates routinely at 300 BeV.

Operation of the accelerators is centered in the Main Control Room where skilled crews keep the machine running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

NAL's permanent staff numbered 1,200 at the end of 1973, including the supporting services vital to efficient operation. Headquarters will be in the 16-story Central Laboratory Building, to be completely occupied during 1974.

Striking architectual features such as the arch of the Meson Detector Building, the twin towers of the Central Laboratory Building, and the geodesic pop can dome, set the pace for the forward-looking, creative research to be done at the National Accelerator Laboratory. The Laboratory practices serious conservation on its site, maintaining a herd of buffalo and encouraging a variety of wildlife.

Since 1968, NAL has actively pursued programs of equal employment opportunity, seeking the achievement of its scientific goals within a framework of equal opportunity and of a deep dedication to the fundamental tenets of human rights and dignity.

Source: The Village Crier Vol. 5 No. 45, December 20, 1973

0.5TeV

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