Environmentally
Quiet Building
The Advanced Materials Characterization Lab is being designed with six (and possibly eight) instrument rooms; each instrument will be operated from an adjacent control room.
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Artist’s rendering of the Advanced Materials Characterization Laboratory. |
In the six laboratories, air
flow and temperature will be carefully controlled; air flow cannot exceed
5 cm/sec and the temperature must not fluctuate more than 1/2°C per
hour. Because the sound level in the microscope rooms must be very low,
the interiors of the lab rooms will be covered with soundproofing foam.
No one will be allowed inside the rooms when the microscopes are operating.
Because even the smallest disturbance of the sample degrades the resolution of ultrasensitive aberration-corrected microscopes, the building is designed to be free of vibrations. It will be built on engineered fill (specially layered rock and soil), not bedrock, which transmits vibrations. To reduce electromagnetic effects, a nearby power line will be moved. Also, the building will be constructed with concrete blocks and epoxy-coated steel rebar (but no metal studs), to eliminate the possibility of electric currents, thus keeping magnetic fields down to 5% of the levels in today’s best ORNL lab buildings.
ORNL Corporate Fellow Steve Pennycook says he’s looking forward to working in a building where his microscopes will be protected from vibrations and electromagnetic fields. “Right now,” he says, “we can’t always get clear images with our microscopes. Sometimes a crane across the road is operating on a construction project, and in the early morning or evening, the street lights are on.”
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