Sunday, April 22, 2012

PVC Extrusions For NOvA

{Don't miss our nomination period to nominate your most attractive physicists}

I pointed out a video of the assembly of the prototype NOvA detector a while back. This is a picture of the cross-section of the PVC extrusions that make up the detector block.



The channels formed by the extrusions will be filled with scintillator liquid (mineral oil?) that hopefully will emit light when a neutrino interacts with the liquid.

A lot of studies have been done with huge structures of these PVC, especially on its structure integrity for something that size over a period of time. In any case, the NOvA detector will have its ribbon-cutting ceremony sometime later this month, and construction will commence very soon afterwards.

You may read more about the NOvA project at their website.

Zz.

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