New User Labs Ready and Waiting at SNS
A new complex of laboratories at the Spallation Neutron Source will open this summer, providing a flexible, mobile environment where users can work efficiently.
The labs, on the second floor of the SNS's Central Laboratory and Office Building, are built with "green" operations in mind, as well as to optimize the available space for researchers' ever-changing scientific needs.
The wide open spaces of the SNS users labs will soon be filled with researchers and their equipment.
"We surveyed more than 900 users on what they needed, and they gave us a wish list," says Chrissi Schnell, the Neutron Scattering Science Division scientific laboratory coordinator.
With overhead utilities and mobile furniture, the complex's 13 labs will allow staff to easily reconfigure the layout of equipment and quickly change an experiment's set-up as needed.
The lab suite has features such as a cold room, which will be kept at 8 degrees C, and includes outlets and workbenches so researchers can run equipment for long periods of time. There is also a furnace closet for solid-state synthesis that has a wall with cable management to organize power and gas lines. The labs also contain standard American Disability Act-compliant fume hoods and safety showers, automatic sliding doors for hands-free access, and a combination of standard and non-standard power outlets suitable for different instrumentation.
The wide open spaces of the SNS users labs will soon be filled with researchers and their equipment.
The labs provide a controlled environment for testing new instruments before they go on the beam line. The Neutron Scattering Science Division has also been working with the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences to set-up a neighboring lab with various X-ray equipment.
Chrissi and lab staff will be on hand to provide services to the researchers such as chemical management and training. "We are here to meet the needs of the researchers and provide them with excellent customer service," Chrissi says.
Researchers, who will include ORNL scientists as well as visiting users, currently have lab space in the SNS Experimental Hall and the High Flux Isotope Reactor.
Video: Chrissi Schnell takes us on a tour of the new labs.
