Rail and steel at 4850L

Progress continues at the Davis Campus at the 4850 Level, in both the Transition and Davis caverns.

Ainsworth-Benning Construction personnel have begun installing the railroad track to the Transition Cavern ?cart wash.? Equipment will be delivered to the cart wash for a thorough cleaning before admission to the clean areas of the Majorana Demonstrator and LUX dark-matter experiments. 

Also in the Transition Cavern, masons have constructed about 65 percent of the concrete block walls, including walls for the Majorana laboratory itself.

In the Davis Cavern, last night the Yates Shaft crew delivered dozens of 2-inch-thick steel plates that will be assembled to form the shielding to protect the LUX experiment from background radiation from the rock below.

The LUX detector will be suspended in 71,600-gallon water tank to protect against background radiation. But the water barrier on the sides of the tank will be greater than the water barrier below?hence the need for the extra protection of low-radiation steel. Six layers of 2-inch plates will be laid on the floor of the detector pit in octagons, one on top of the other, each octagon larger than the one below it, forming a sort of inverted pyramid.

The stainless steel water tank is being fabricated in Springfield, Mo.