The Advanced Laser for Extreme Photonics (ALEPH) lab at Colorado State University is seeking a firm for design verification and manufacturing of multiple vacuum chambers that can perform all aspects of the project in house. ALEPH serves users from many institutions, including other universities and national laboratories who conduct experiments in relativistic laser-matter interactions. CSU is upgrading ALEPH’s current 0.85 Petawatt laser both in peak power and in repetition rate. ALEPH will use the vacuum chambers to conduct high intensity laser matter interactions. This drives a critical requirement that the vacuum chambers are clean from hydrocarbons to avoid contaminating the expensive laser optics placed inside the chambers. The dimensions and surface finishes of the chambers are described in Exhibit B Design and Manufacture Requirements along with vacuum best practices for fabrication. The CAD files (attachments 1-3) for the three chamber designs are published as a link under Exhibit A, firms interested in the project can download these files.
Design Phase:
Using CSU’s 3D CAD files (see Exhibit A for link to download attachments 1-3 CAD Design Files) of the current chamber design the awarded firm will review the chambers for manufacturability, suggest any revisions to the chamber, and submit a complete set of engineering drawings for each chamber for CSU approval. Additionally, weldment maps must be provided and approved by CSU. Once approved the awarded firm must conduct FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS (FEA) with safety margin on structural weldments.
Upon receipt of the engineering package, CSU will perform a final check on the drawings and approve for manufacturing. After CSU approves the engineering drawing package for the chambers, the project will continue to the Manufacturing and Testing Phase.
CSU reserves the right to cancel the contract if the Design Phase does not receive CSU’s approval.
CSU will own all engineering design and intellectual property generated for the project.
Following the approval, the project will proceed to phase 2 which includes the construction of the estimated 10 chambers listed here:
• Octagonal vacuum chambers estimated quantity of two (2)
• Rectangular vacuum chambers estimated quantity of four (4)
• 36-inch round vacuum chambers estimated quantity of four (4)