Vulcan GMS Parts Help Investigate Universe's Origin
Milwaukee, -Vulcan GMS, Inc. (www.vulcangms.com), a supplier of radiation protection products, is making parts for the Large Hadron Collider's (LHC) ALICE Detector. The LHC, located at the European Laboratory for Nuclear Physics, in Geneva, Switzerland, will open a new frontier in the physics of ultra-high-density hadronic matter and Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP). The U.S. Department of Energy, working with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), is fabricating a large, single-arm, electromagnetic calorimeter for the ALICE (short for: A Large Ion Collider Experiment) Detector.
Commenting on the project, Joseph E. Rasson, Project Technical Coordinator at LBNL, said, "The goal of the experiment is to understand the evolution and structure of nuclear matter from its smallest building blocks-quarks and gluons-to the elements created by stars. A main activity in this field of nuclear science is the search for the QGP and other new phenomena that might occur in the extremely hot, dense plasma believed to have filled the universe a millionth of a second after the Big Bang."
To reproduce that original moment, physicists will collide two beams of lead ions and generate a quark-gluon plasma, the state of matter hypothesized to exist at the time of Big Bang. "This collision, heating matter to temperatures 100,000 times greater than the temperature at the center of the sun, will happen within the ALICE Detector," Rasson said.
"Our team is honored to be participating in a high-technology project of this caliber," said Tom Ray, president of Vulcan GMS.
According to Matt Macur, the Vulcan GMS sales engineer who is working with LBNL, "Vulcan makes the lead tiles that encircle the beam pipe at a radius of five meters. When assembled, this part of the system is made up of 288 modules, each of which contains 76 individual, 5-by-5-inch tiles manufactured by Vulcan.
"Fiber-optic wires run through the 144 holes in each of these tiles and will precisely record the electromagnetic energy produced, capturing data at a rate of one gigabyte per second. The ALICE Detector will make a significant contribution to answering questions about what might have occurred during that first millionth of a second," said Macur.
The design and construction of the ALICE Detector is the result of an effort by more than 1,000 scientists from 94 organizations in 28 countries.
Vulcan Global Manufacturing Solutions is a leader in the manufacture of custom radiation safety products made from lead, tungsten, high-density plastics and non-lead metal polymers. ISO 9001/2008 registered, Vulcan GMS is a provider of components and assemblies for some of the world's largest equipment companies. The company specializes in the security, medical, aviation and explosives industries.
