Long Duration Facility (LDE)

Beamline I11 hosts the world's first dedicated, multi-use, synchrotron long duration experiments (LDE) facility, providing the scientific community with the opportunity to study in situ changes in structure and phase within a wide range of slowly evolving materials over extended periods of time (months to years). Such changes may be brought about by slow kinetic relaxation or thermodynamic equilibration, chemical ageing, prolonged exposure to non-ambient conditions, adverse environments, or as the cumulative result of high duty cycle processing etc.

 

Posible sample cells or environments:

 

(i) Small cells with services (electrical, water and/or other coolants). These are small scale environments which could have heating, cooling, liquid circulation or electrical cycling to study long term effects of materials subjected to these conditions, e.g. seasonal changes, solution crystallisation and charged/discharged battery materials.

 

(ii) Medium cells with services (electrical, water and/or other coolants). Their functions are very similar to the small cells, but have a larger capacity to handle more material, or allow space or more services.

 

(iii) Large cells with services (electrical, water and/or other coolants). These are heavy duty systems to simulate industrial conditions, e.g. alloy degradation under tension and humidity effect in pharmaceuticals in large volume storage. Each sample environment should be placed on a goniometer (heavy duty) to be manipulated into position.

 

(iv) Small cells (Type-R) are cells with the size module defined in 1, but without the service requirement. These will be stored on a carousel or shelves and designed with a locating pin for pick/place by robotic arm. These are for self contained systems such as slow chemical reactions, corrosion or the aging of materials such as pharmaceuticals and biofuels.

 

(v) Special cells (Type-S) are those that do not fit to any of the above specifications and will be treated as special cases to be dealt with individually. A platform with sufficient room will be set aside to accommodate one or two such cells.

 

The dimensions and other specifications for these classes are summarised in the table below. The classification of an individual cell is important, allowing its assignment to a particular platform or stage stated in the table and above figure.

 

Summary of LDE sample cell classification.