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Turner Construction Hands Off LCLS Site

Facilities staff members and Facilities Department Head Liam Robinson (back left) talk with Uli Wienands of LCLS (right) about the upcoming handover. (Photo by Calla Cofield. Click for larger image.)

On November 17, Turner Construction achieved "Substantial Completion" of civil construction on the Linac Coherent Light Source site; Turner has finished up all major field construction, and is beginning review of their written plans for the new buildings with SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory staff. With this achievement, the group is handing over management of the facilities to SLAC.

"The handover is a major accomplishment," said LCLS Deputy Director Mark Reichanadter. "[It] allows us to stay on schedule for completing the installation of electron beam technical hardware in December. Final checkout and an external review are scheduled next, and then we should be ready for e-beam commissioning. This is a very exciting time at SLAC."

For almost 28 months, Turner has been in charge of constructing and maintaining 13 new buildings for the LCLS, including the excavation of 180,000 cubic yards of soil to build its underground X-ray tunnel. Turner also installed electrical and cooling systems for the buildings. During construction, Turner documented in blueprints, building plans and user manuals the detailed inner workings of each building. Now, they must review these plans and manuals with SLAC to ensure their accuracy. Turner expects to submit final plans in about three months.

With the handoff, further construction of the facilities will become the responsibility of the LCLS Conventional Facilities group. SLAC security will also take on new responsibilities for the site. Starting in December, operation and maintenance of the new buildings will become the responsibility of the SLAC Facilities Department. Turner Construction, along with the LCLS Conventional Facilities group and an outside commissioning agent, have been working with the SLAC Facilities Department to prepare them for the handoff.

"It's very exciting," said Acting Head of Facilities Liam Robinson. "We get to run a new state-of-the-art facility, with new things to learn. This doesn't happen every day." The Facilities Department is expected to achieve 95% reliability on all LCLS systems. "That's an increased reliability from what we normally run, with the exception of [the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource]," Robinson continued. "It will require a change in maintenance philosophy."

"Handing [LCLS] over is a huge milestone for us. We've been working very, very hard, sometimes 20-hour days during the tunneling operations, to get to this point," said Conventional Facilities Systems Manager for LCLS David Saenz. "It means we've succeeded in our job: to build and complete the conventional facilities for the LCLS project."

—Calla Cofield
  SLAC Today, November 25, 2008