Neutron Sciences 2008 Annual Report - 17.79 MB - Spallation ...

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INTRODUCTION 2008 ANNUAL REPORT
ORNL NEUTRON SCIENCES neutrons.ornl.gov
Welcome
Ian Anderson,
Associate Laboratory Director
for Neutron Sciences
When I look back at the changes that have occurred in the past year, I can’t
help but marvel at the progress we’ve made in increasing and improving the
performance and instrumentation of the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS)
and High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR), bringing users to our facilities, and
producing scientific results. I must thank the staff of the Neutron Sciences
Directorate and our sponsor, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office
of Basic Energy Sciences, for its demonstrated commitment to the vision
of providing the scientific community with unprecedented capabilities for
understanding the structure and properties of materials.
Early in the year, SNS became the official Guinness World Record holder
for the most powerful pulsed spallation neutron source. With every increase
in power during the year, we continued to break that record and
ended the year at more than twice the power that won us the record. In
total, beam power was increased by nearly a factor of four to 625 kilowatts.
The coming years will remain a challenge as we work to achieve
1.4 megawatts of beam power by FY 2010 or CY 2011. At HFIR, the
new cold source operated successfully all year, providing unique capabilities
to the research community. HFIR finished the year completing
six cycles and beginning a seventh, which allowed us to provide
instrument time to students participating in the Neutron and X-Ray
Scattering School.
We made significant progress toward providing a full complement
of instruments at SNS and HFIR (25 and 11, respectively)
by completing 4 instruments at SNS (CNCS, SNAP,
SEQUOIA, and FNPB) and 2 at HFIR (Powder and Single-Crystal