Memorable Fourth
 Photo: Fermilab |
Holiday weekends are meant to be special, but nine Fermilab employees got a dose of unwanted excitement this Fourth of July. Reaffirming that an accelerator laboratory never sleeps, engineers and technicians were called away from family barbeques and town parades to replace a failed transformer over the long holiday weekend.
Transformers play a crucial role in providing power to Fermilab's accelerators, which operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week to deliver particle beams. When a transformer of the Main Injector accelerator failed on Saturday evening, it had to be replaced as soon as possible to minimize downtime of several experiments.
Although a spare transformer was on site, the repair crew had to order a crane and a rigging crew to lift the old transformer out of position and to replace it with the spare (photo below). Because of the holiday weekend, it took more than a phone call to receive permission for a large crane to travel the Illinois roads. As usual, the repair crew was up to the challenge. Thanks to the crew's dedication, less than 72 hours later, the accelerator was back up and running, and scientists returned on Tuesday, July 5, to a fully functioning lab.
Amelia Greene
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