Risk CDT - Understanding the risks associated with the design and construction of large particle accelerators

PLEASE APPLY ONLINE TO THE SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING, PROVIDING THE PROJECT TITLE, NAME OF THE PRIMARY SUPERVISOR AND SELECT THE PROGRAMME CODE "EGPR" (PHD - SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING)

This is a project within the multi-disciplinary EPSRC and ESRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) on Quantification and Management of Risk & Uncertainty in Complex Systems & Environments, within the Institute for Risk and Uncertainty. The studentship is granted for 4 years and includes, in the first year, a Master in Decision Making under Risk & Uncertainty. The project includes extensive collaboration with prime industry to build an optimal basis for employability.

At the heart of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) mission is the provision of world-leading science facilities for UK researchers to pursue excellent discovery science. Amongst the facilities that STFC provides access to are huge particle accelerators, such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, or the Diamond Light Source at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire. The STFC has decided that the next big particle accelerator that should be built in the UK is a new type of X-ray light source, called a Free Electron Laser (FEL). This new facility, so-called UK FEL, will enable scientists to study ultra-fast processes with extreme spatial resolution. Although the design of UK FEL has not yet started in detail it is clear from other similar projects that it will cost hundreds of millions of pounds and be hundreds of meters long.

STFC has decided that, as a first step towards the UK FEL, a prototype FEL should first be built to minimise the long term technical and financial risks for the UK. This prototype is called CLARA, the first sections of which have now been fabricated and are being installed at Daresbury Laboratory in Cheshire. CLARA is a complex, 90m long, particle accelerator and FEL project which must manage a significant number of risks, whilst simultaneously ensuring that the goal of reducing the risks for UK FEL is also met.

This PhD project will study all of the risks associated with CLARA and UK FEL, carefully assess the intrinsic links between the two projects and quantify the beneficial impact of CLARA technically, financially, and otherwise on the UK FEL.