A Distinctive Building

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With 68,000 square meters of built area, the main Sirius building will have four floors with capacity for up to 620 people, including employees and visitors. The predominantly circular shape of the building is a result of the geometry of the main accelerator (storage ring), where electrons are stored and synchrotron light is produced.

It will house the three accelerators of electrons and up to 40 beamlines, six of which are considered long, with lengths ranging from 100 to 150 meters. The building and its implementation are designed so that two extra-long beamlines can be built in the future with experimental stations up to 250 meters away.

In addition to the experimental area, this building has in its interior areas for utilities and sources of current to the accelerators as well as support laboratories, data centers, operation and control room, living areas and offices.

From the center of the circle, five main concentric areas can be distinguished: Inner Yard, Engineering Area, Shielding of the Accelerators, Experimental Hall and Support Area.

Inner Yard

The Inner Yard is the area that receives facilities that do not need to be sheltered such as chillers, chilled water tanks for thermal storage and storage tanks for helium and diesel.

The central geodesic landmark, used as a reference in the alignment of accelerators and beamlines is in this area.

This yard will also receive the building for the central power generation system for emergency operation and the central for recovery of helium used in superconducting devices of the accelerators.

A tunnel under the main building allows large vehicles to access the yard, making possible the modular deployment of equipment and facilities in this area.

Engineering Area

The Engineering Area will house two pumping stations, compressed air systems, mean step-down substation for low voltage, UPS room, radio frequency amplifiers room, modulators for the Linac (linear accelerator), support and maintenance rooms. It will also feature a second operating and control room for the accelerators for special occasions such as maintenance, start-up and commissioning.

Externally surrounding the Engineering Area, the facility will have three floors. The ground floor will be destined to the rooms of air conditioning equipment and rooms for the main sources of current for the dipoles of the storage ring and the Booster. The first and second floors will be used for pipe racks for distribution utilities directed mainly to the accelerators, such as electricity, data, water for cooling and fire fighting, compressed air and gases.

Shielding of the Accelerators

The Shielding of the Accelerators is the area within which the Booster and the Storage Ring will be assembled. This is the equipment in which electrons are accelerated and the Synchrotron Light is produced. The shielding will provide both the necessary dimensional and mechanical stability to the equipment as well as ensure the radiological safety of the facilities.

The shielding is constructed on a 90 cm thick monolithic concrete floor, and its walls and coverings will be also in concrete with variable thickness between 80 and 150 centimeters.

All the shield will be constructed without expansion joints and will be one single piece of concrete with over 500 meters of length. The shield also has openings in its ceiling, which allow the movement of any component of the accelerators using cranes.

The shielding also functions as a radiation protection system in order to provide the safety of all the people who have access to the premises of Sirius, ensuring that the environment is characterized as radiation free. The radiation protection program is developed in accordance with auditing standards established by the CNEN (Brazilian Nuclear Energy Commission), as well as international standards for radiation protection.

Experimental Hall

The Experimental Hall is the area around the shielding of the accelerators and receives the facilities and equipment that make up each beamline.

In a Synchrotron Light Source, the beamlines are the experimental stations where materials are analyzed. They are as complex microscopes that focus the synchrotron radiation so that it illuminates the samples of the materials under study and allow the observation of their microscopic properties.

Support Area

The support area is composed of three floors which play an important role in thermal stability of the experimental hall, functioning as a thermal barrier between the exterior and the Beamline Area.

The ground floor will concentrate all rooms for the support of the beamlines. Chemical, physical and thematic laboratories will be installed, as well as offices for groups from the engineering and science divisions, responsible for the operation, maintenance and improvement of the beamlines.

The first floor will be allocated to offices for researchers and members of the science division. It will also feature rooms for meetings and seminars, distributed throughout the area, allowing simultaneous events. The top floor will be dedicated to the technical area, including the distribution of electricity, air conditioning, exhaustion and ventilation.