TR/1

UNIVERSITY

RESEARCH SCHOOL OF PHYSICAL SCIENCES

ANU P/580

THE DEPARTMENT OF

THE OPENING OF THE NEW NUCLEAR STRUCTURE FACILITY, INCLUDING THE 14UD PELLETRON ACCELERATOR

By

THE PRIME MINISTER, the HON. E.G. WHITLAM, QC, MP SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 1ST 1973

INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDIES

THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

Research School of Physical Sciences

Department of Nuclear Physics

THE OPENING OF THE NEW NUCLEAR STRUCTURE FACILITY,

INCLUDING THE 14UD PELLETRON ACCELERATOR

Remarks by:

The Director, Research School of Physical Sciences,

Professor Sir Ernest Titterton, C.M.G., F.A.A.

The President, Nat:onal Electrostatics Corporation,

Middleton, Wisconsin,

Professor Ray Herb

The Prime Minister

The Hon. E.G. Whitlam, QC, MP.

REMARKS BY PROFESSOR SIR ERNEST TITTERTON

DIRECTOR, RESEARCH SCHOOL OF PHYSICAL SCIENCES

AT THE OPENING OF

THE NUCLEAR STRUCTURE RESEARCH FACILITY, A.N.U.

Mr Pro-Chancellor Mr Prime Minister Ladies and Gentlemen

First let me offer apologies on behalf of the Vice-Chancellor

and his wife, and Professor New'.on, all of whom are overseas at

present. I know they are disappointed to have to miss the ceremony.

***********

In 1950 when I was appointed to the foundation Chair of Nuclear

Physics in this University, there were no buildings, no equipment and

no staff. My task was obvious and challenging, it was, simply to

build as good a Department of Nuclear Physics as I could with the funds

available.

My first action was to negotiate with the Philips Company in

Eindhoven to build the biggest air insulated Cockcroft Walton Accel­

erator possible at that time. This machine was installed and brought

into use in in 1951. The work done with it, especially in

photonuclear physics, impressed Sir , at that time Director

of the Harwell Research Establishment in England, so much that he

prevailed on the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority to give one of the recently

developed 33 million volt to my Department. That

machine vas installed in 1955 and research carried out with it further

enhanced the reputation of the Laboratory. By the late 1950's the

principle of the tandem accelerator had been demonstrated and our - 3 -

More recently the small Van der Graaff generator, used with the • 'l:e;u.:-os hi ChaU 'h ver, Canada, had purchased the first commercially EN tanaem for many years, has been moved to the University of Queensland •niln' 'e nncn^u- :l ir aecelerar•,•• i . which yielded beams with energies where Dr Gardner and his group are undertaking channelling studies in •:'eut a hector ef two higher than had previously been available from crystals with it. In this way nothing has been wasted and we have electrostatic machines, and with good resolution and excellent beam been able to provide considerable help to colleagues in other quality, offered opportunities for greatly expanded research work in Universities. nuciear physics- It was an enormous fillip, therefore, to the work of With the new funds made available by the Government we have the laboratory, when the roderai Governri^nt , through the Australian elected, as your programme notes have told you, to do two things. Un;vci'Mii:> Commission, accepted our submission for such an accelerator First we up-graded the original tandem accelerator by installing and provided us with fe&OO,000 to bu:LU it. another accelerating machine in front of it. This machine, a fixed The new laboratory with its accelerator - an EN tandem Van der energy cyclotron, can inject beams of 26 million volt protons or 14 i.raaff ,r- it v.as called - was opened by the Prime Minister of the day, million volt deuterons into the EN tandem which can then accelerate the ht. Mon. Robert Mencie-, en "lay II iehl. them by up to a further 12 millior volts. We thus have available as

i have been unable to find a copy of the remarks I made at that a research tool proton beams of up to 38 MeV and deuteron beams of

opening, but I recall well putting trie view that physics is a up to 26 MeV. This combination of machines, called a Cyclo-Graaff,

'iLacipluu' demanding expensive capital equipment, much of which becomes has been in operation for about a year for nuclear physics research

obsolescent within a decade. I believe I warned the Prime Minister and is working effectively.

on that occasion that further monies would undoubtedly be sought. Such The second machine we elected to build was much more ambitious, indeed was the case and, in response to our proposals, the Australian sophisticated and difficult. Called a type 14UD Pelletron Accelerator Universities Commission made available a grant of $2.2 million for this machine incorporates new ideas, techniques and principles new accelerating machines to be purchased during the triennium 1970-72. developed by Professor Ray Herb and his colleagues at National

To make way for the new,some older accelerators had to be closed Electrostatics Corporation, Wisconsin. Only one other machine of this

down. They have, however, been put to good use elsewhere. Thus Dr type - a much smaller version called an 8UD - is in existence. It,

Jack Kelly has our original Cockcroft Walton machine in operation in also, was built by National Electrostatics Corporation - and is in

the University of New South Wales and is using it with effect in a operation in Brazil. In our case, the steel pressure vessel which

variety cf studieo on the solid state. The 33 MeV electron contains the accelerator structure is so large, 73' long by 18'

was moved to the University of Western Australia in Perth, where Dr diameter, that it could not be transported to Canberra in finished form.

John Thies and his team have continued a programme of It was manufactured in Sydney by Babcock and Wilcox and was transported

studies with it. wo Canberra by road in seven parts. It had to be erected and welded on - 4 - - 5 - site. It was so heavy, about 100 tons, that it could not be lifted going through it. This test was completed quite quickly, the tube into the building. Instead it was erected first and the concrete tower sustaining 14.5 million volts without any difficulty. Meanwhile a great deal of work was going on outside the accelerator tank of the was then built around it. machine. At the top of the tower, in the injection roon., an icn Meanwhile the accelerator stack had been manufactured by National source had been assembled, tested and brought into operation. This Electrostatics Corporation and erected for mechanical testing in device generates the particles to be accelerated, focuses them into that Company's Middleton plant. The centre terminal of the machine a beam and gives them a small acceleration up to 150,000 volts. is in three parts and is very large, 10'6" long by 5' diameter. It Unwanted particles in this beam are removed and its direction changed is constructed of highly polished stainless steel. It is located in from horizontal to vertical in a magnet sitting immediately over the the centre of the pressure tank and carries the highest potential - main accelerator tank. The vertical beam, going downwards, is voltage - in the system. There are fourteen accelerating units or focussed again by a magnetic system and can be positioned modules below it and fourteen above it and hence the name 14UD - accurately before it enters the accelerating tube of the machine. fourteen units dual. After the accelerated particles leave the machine they have to Each of the units or modules is 24 inches long so that the be focussed again, their direction changed back from vertical to completed stack with terminal is some 67 feet long and a very impressive horizontal by a powerful magnet so that they can be conveyed into the sight. target area of the laboratory where the experimental work is to be The system was shipped to Canberra and arrived in October last done. year. Erection of the stack inside the pressure vessel was completed Because particle beams of this type produce high intensity by Christmas 1972 and the system, without its accelerator tubes was radiation whenever they impinge on matter, all of this equipment has ready for mechanical and voltage testing in January of this year. to be operated and controlled remotely. The large control room with It performed exceedingly well and surpassed our expectations in its machine control desk and its remote television viewing capabilities that the terminal of the machine was taken safely to over 20 million provides for this. Ultimately, it will contain, in addition, the volts - a figure we believe to be a world record. electronic instrumentation and data handling computer needed to allow

When this testing was completed, the accelerating tube itself was the nuclear reactions, induced by the beams from the machine, to be

installed, and put under vacuum. The tu~e is the critical component studied. of the machine - it has to be as leak tight as modern technology Now all of this is very easy to say in a few sentences. But it allows and has to remain so otherwise the accelerated particles passing represents months of work by NEC staff and our own staff. I shall not through it would be scattered by gas molecules and the quality of the list the large number of people who have worked on the project - all beam degraded. By Easter this work was completed and it was possible with enthusiasm and vigour. But I should mention Dr Robert Rathmell to carry through a voltage test on the tube itself but without a beam - 6 - - 7 - and Mr Robert Daniel of NEC both of whom are here today and working on University. It is a challenge which will be enthusiastically accepted the project, and Drs. Trevor Ophel and Ray Spear and Mr John Harrison and, in due course, with a record of successful research behind us I of our own staff who have taken responsibility for important aspects am sure, Mr Prime Minister, we shall be coming forward with more proposals for expenditure on machines to retain and, if possible, of the ANU's part of the programme. improve the position we have reached in the 22-year history of the And so the day eventually arrived when, for the very first time, Department of Nuclear Physics. a 14UD accelerator was ready for test. With such a complex and Thank you Mr Pro-Chancellor. sophisticated device, never before assembled and tested and using new

and advanced technologies, we had to expect teething troubles. And

our expectations were justified - we had a share of vacuum, electrical

and mechanical problems.

However, on Wednesday, August 15th last the first proton beam

was successfully accelerated to 16 million volts of energy and with

a beam intensity of 2 micro-amperes. By August 25th the energy of the

beam had been taken up to somewhat over 14 million volts and by

August 31st we had 3 micro-amperes of 27 million volt protons. We are

still on the way up.

Following these preliminary trials we shall shortly commence the

formal acceptance test programme for the machine and this will take

some weeks. After that there is still a great deal of hard work to be

done in the target area as well as on the machine itself before the

system comes into use for nuclear structure research studies. This,

if all goes well we expect to be in early 1974.

Ladies and Gentlemen, completion of the Cyclo-Graaff system as a

world-ranking proton and deuteron research facility and the near

completion of the 14UD Pelletron machine with its unique capability

for accelerating helium and heavier ion beams opens research

opportunities which are not matched, at present, anywhere else in the

world. This is an enormous challenge to research workers in the

REMARKS BY PROFESSOR R.G. HERB

PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ELECTROSTATICS CORPORATION

AT THE OPENING OF

THE NUCLEAR STRUCTURE RESEARCH FACILITY, A.N.U.

Mr Pro-Chancellor Mr Prime Minister Ladies and Gentlemen

It is with great pleasure tb t I accept this opportunity to say

a few words at this ceremony.

In the U.S.A. we have watched with great interest the development

of Nuclear Physics in your University under the leadership of

Professor Titterton.

His ende?vours led to the installation, in 1961, of the first EN

tandem accelerator outside North America. The work done with that

machine, very similar to the one we installed a few months earlier in

the University of Wisconsin, lifted the Canberra Laboratory, to rank

as one of the best nuclear structure research groups in the world.

Through the excellent liaison between the Canberra and Wisconsin

laboratories, Sir Ernest followed closely the development work I and

my students were doing in the accelerator field. When, in 1969, the

Canberra group received the obvious reward for the excellent work

done with the earlier machine - an injection of a large sum of money

for upgrading the facility - Sir Ernest was faced with a complex

problem. He chose to solve it in characteristic manner.

Part of the funds were used for a cyclotron injector to convert

the original tandem accelerator into what, today, is the highest

energy Cyclo-Graaff in the world. His second objective was to obtain

the best possible heavy-ion accelerator that technology would allow. - 2 -

He considered every possibility in Europe and the U.S.A. and we are REMARKS BY THE PRIME MINISTER, MR E.G. WHITLAM, QCt MP.

gratified indeed that after a most detailed assessment he turned to our AT THE OPENING OF

small company. At that time the highest terminal voltage we were THE NUCLEAR STRUCTURE RESEARCH FACILITY, A.N.U.

considering for our machines was 10 million volts. But this was not Mr Pro Chancellor enough for Sir Ernest. He sat down with me and my engineers and after Mr Acting Vice-Chancellor three gruelling days he convinced us not only that he had enough funds Sir Ernest Titterton Professor Herb to do the job but that the technology was far enough advanced for us Ladies and Gentlemen to undertake to build a machine with a guaranteed terminal voltage

of 14 millions. And that is how the 14UD accelerator was born. I am sure you will appreciate how beguiling the prospect was of

Sir Ernest's far sightedness and drive not only secured an opening your new Laboratories at the invitation of Sir Ernest Titterton.

enormous advantage for the A.N.U. but it also stimulated my company I am not, I suppose, renowned for my support for nuclear experiments.

so that today we believe we can build machines which will hold Let me say immediately, therefore, that the work of the Research

terminals at potentials as high as 25 million volts. School of Physical Sciences is one form of nuclear testing that my

The 14UD Pelletron Accelerator you are going to see today is Government encourages wholeheartedly. It was a Labor Government, in

absolutely unique in the world. It is currently undergoing its 1947, that established this School and permitted it to conduct research

acceptance tests in the laboratory and when theje are completed and in nuclear physic?. Your work here has been of profound importance.

the machine goes into operation for experimental work I believe it will Your new installation, the first of its kind in the world, is undoubtedly a major advance in nuclear research technology. be the best tandem accelerator in the world«

Mr Prime Minister you can be happy that the University has Sir Ernest Titterton took the no doubt sound precaution, when he

invested the funds made available to it so wisely and well and in such invited me here, of suggesting that I might not wish to speak at length

a way that immense prestige is earned - not only for the University about nuclear physics as a discipline. Yet I suggest that it is

itself - but for Australia also. precisely as_ a discipline, as an exercise in the pursuit of pure

Thank you Mr Pro-Chancellor. knowledge, that nuclear physics has made its most significant contribution to human understanding. There is room for dispute, passionate dispute,

about the practical value of nuclear physics and the technological uses

to which it has been put - notoriously, of course, in the manufacture

of weapons and even, more recently, in its value as a source of power.

But there can never by any dispute about the theoretical importance of

what you are doing. Modern nuclear physics is the frontier of an inquiry - 3 - - 2 - One of the first decisions my Government made - and which I into the fundamental constituents of matter that began with the ancient announced within a week of my swearing-in as Prime Minister - was Greeks. Like cosmology - to which, in a real sense, it is related - that Australia would ratify the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and it deals in ultimates. As such, its importance is transcendental. I the Seabed Arms Control Treaty. On 23 January the instrument«; of might add, however, that for Governments who have to pay for it, it is ratification were deposited in London, Washington and Moscow. We were a matter of some regret that the smaller the particles you examine, determined, as we are still determined, to give strong and unequivocal the bigger and more costly is the apparatus required. support to efforts to check the spread of nuclear weapons, and to the These somewhat philosophical observations apart, I think we have principles of arms control contained in the two treaties. Australia to admit that your field of research is a uniquely controversial one. is also, of course, a party to the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. This is inevitable; it may always be so. The products of nuclear We are opposed to all forms of nuclear weapons testing by whatever

technology, the enormous public interest that surrounds it, its great nation in whatever environment, and our objective is the suspension of

cost, the high political character of many of the decisions that all such testing. There should be no doubt about the strength of our

affect its future, the current attention paid to the environment and resolve on this issue. pollution - all these considerations ensure that your work will remain The importance of the non-proliferation treaty, however, does not the subject of intense public debate and disputation. The progress of lie simply in its restraint on the spread of weapons. It also world nuclear research has been likened to a comet going around the sun. provides a positive stimulus to nuclear research for peaceful purports It grew more and more heated as it approached the fires of public and and enforces safeguards for the use of nuclear materials. Australian political controversy, but is now moving into calmer and cooler regions. officials are at present negotiating with the International Atomic In such regions, I suggest, Governments and Universities are best able Energy Agency for a safeguards agreement to operate under the treaty. to apply the results of nuclear research to peaceful purposes. In addition, Australia has bi-lateral agreements with the United States, I need hardly stress that the Australian Government wholeheartedly Canada and Japan for the exchange of nuclear information. supports all efforts to direct atomic research into peaceful uses. At the National Conference of the Australian Labor Party in July, This is more than a pious expression of goodwill. Recent developments a resolution was adopted calling on the Australian Government "to stimulate in global politics have obscured the threat to human survival that the growth of nuclear technology". Projects as yours will contribute

nuclear weapons still pose. A little over a decade ago, the supreme significantly to this growth. I would, however, be less than frank if

preoccupation of statesmen throughout the world was with the possibility I left the impression that the Government is committeed to nuclear

of a nuclear holocaust, whether deliberately or accidentally triggered. research as a means of developing important new sources of energy. In

The Partial Test Ban Treaty, the detente between the Soviet Union and a world whose energy reserves are diminishing, and are ultimately

the United States, have certainly diminished that threat. They have by finite, it is clear that new sources of energy will one day be needed.

no means removed it. - 4 - - 5 -

It would be rash to anticipate where this energy will come from, or in accordance with our policy on mineral exports and development, any how it will be generated. It is, however, proper that we face the enrichment plant in Australia will be Australian-owned, and its

act that nuclear energy no longer appears as attractive a source of products will be made available for peaceful purposes only to countries power as it once did. As you know, our predecessors twice put off a who have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. decision on the construction of a nuclear power station at Jervis The practical benefits of nuclear research have been rich and

Bay. I can see little prospect of this project being revived in the varied. None of us can doubt that further uses, further applications, will be discovered. Fundamental research such as yours is basic to foreseeable future. this process of discovery. As a member of a world family of nuclear Because of our importance as a producer of , Australia nations, Australia will play a responsible and growing part in these has a special obligation to see that our uranium is used for peaceful efforts. I believe your work makes an invaluable contribution to purposes - whether as an energy source, or in other ways. Exports human knowledge, and ultimately, we must hope, will bring us nearer to are likely to be the mainstay of the Australian uranium industry. a more civilised and peaceful world. Even on the most optimistic assessment of the prospects of nuclear

power generation in Australia, Australian domestic demand is unlikely

to exceed 2000 or 3000 short tons of uranium oxide before 1990. In

consequence, the major industrial countries are already seeking to

archase Australian uranium in unenriched form with contracts for

delivery commencing five and six years in the future.

The Department of Minerals and Energy is currently investigating

the prospects for uranium enrichment in Australia. This process offers

by far the best return to the Australian uranium industry. Enriched

uranium is worth four tines the value of the raw material. Until

recently, the enrichment process was a monopoly of the United States and

France. Now it is expected that a new technology of enrichment, by

means of a gas centrifuge, will enable Australia and other nations to

enrich uranium ourselves. For this reason, Australia has joined the

so-called Association for Centrifuge Enrichment, in order to avail herself

of the more modern and cheaper technology. I see great opportunities

for us in developing this technology, augmenting our mineral earnings

and contributing to world-wide nuclear research. But I assure you that