High School Research at Jefferson Lab

Solving Design Issues Through Modeling

This summer, my project is to help my mentors with designing a part to solve a problem encountered in a structure designed earlier in the year. The structure consists of a circular bracket with two parallel crossbars roughly dividing the circle into thirds. The crossbars have equally spaced holes across them, where multiple small rectangular brackets are mounted. The brackets hold thin diamond crystals that are connected at the corner and extend outwards. The complete structure is intended to be rotated as an electron beam passes through and create polarized photons. However, the crystals are mounted slightly above the circular bracket (away from the center of rotation), which causes the position of the crystals to vary while the structure is rotating, providing for inconsistent data. The goal of the project is to find the most efficient way to solve the problem that the current iteration of the structure produces, accomplished by moving the position of the crystals by .142905" (to the center of rotation) if possible. The crossbar is the part that must be changed, as the rectangular brackets are already produced and attached to their respective crystals. The structural integrity of the bar must be taken into heavy consideration, as the dimensions of the metal crossbar are extremely small, allowing for the potential to bend during machining and vibrate during operation.