First PETRA III Girders Installed

A PETRA III girder in the experimental hall

The first so called PETRA III girders are now being installed in the new experimental hall. These special brackets which bear the bending magnets for the electron beam in the PETRA III hall have been developed at DESY especially for this project. Only with these girders it is possible to guarantee the high precision required for the exact positioning of the magnets for the new one-eighth sector of the PETRA III ring.

The innovative and cost efficient concept allows positioning the beam line magnets and vacuum chambers, including the beam diagnostic elements, with a precision of markedly below 100 micrometres and – if necessary – to readjust them with remote-controlled micromovers. Thus, the components’ positioning precision corresponds to the diameter of a human hair.

The design of the four different girder types that will be used is based on a planning and provisioning time of several years, with elaborate previous tests at two competing prototypes. Currently, the last hole in the PETRA III ring is being closed with the installation of a total of 34 girders.

Craning a girder in the experimental hall