CERN’s EIFFEL space elevator accelerator, the tallest structure on Earth- 2.5km will be completely 3D printed using both concrete and metals.
Lately, the use of 3D printing at CERN has been ramping up lately with several physics labs and experiments benefit from AM capabilities to create highly intricate, unique structures to run particle detectors. Taking inspiration from GEs wind turbines, it’s time to usher in entirely new level of large format additive manufacturing (LFAM).
“Do antimatter apples fall up?” is the question that certain to aggravate physicists working on new vertical accelerator proposed for CERN. If a different were spotted, it would spell the end of “CPT invariance.”
“The Standard Model of particle physics has been very successful, but it can’t explain the 95% of the universe which is ‘dark’, and neither Einstein nor any physicist since has been able to cook up a working theory of quantum gravity,” says theorist Flora Oilp. “It’s time to challenge its most fundamental principle head-on.”
Building of Accelerator
The accelerator will be built in two stages- Stage one proposes 500 m vertical accelerator, starting from the base of the LHC shafts. There will be exciting collaboration with NASA may come with fruition by utilizing detectors on the International Space Station (ISS) to detect beams of particles fired by the accelerator every time the ISS is overhead.
Stage one will seek to match roughly 1% precision on measurements of gravitational constant “g”, which is currently being targeted in parallel by experiments with antihydrogen at the Laboratory’s Antimatter Factory.
CERNs proposed structure is modest, rising a mere 2.5 km above the Swiss countryside.
This advanced particle accelerator nevertheless is three times taller than Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which has been the tallest structure in the world since 2009.
“The sky’s the limit!” says CERN’s Pilar Olof, who was recently elected spokesperson of the new Elevator-Inspired Fast-Fermion Endwise Linac collaboration (EIFFEL). “Recent years have seen debates over whether the next accelerator should be linear or circular, but a consensus is now building that it should be vertical. We can’t wait for the world to see the EIFFEL.”
