France – Laboratory, optical and precision equipments (excl. glasses) – Chambres à vide NEG pour SOLEIL II

As part of the « SOLEIL II » Upgrade, the SOLEIL Synchrotron located in Saint-Aubin (91) launches a call for tender (negotiated procedure) for the supply of vacuum chambers with Non-Evaporable Getter (NEG) coatings intended for the storage ring. The vacuum of the future storage ring will be achieved through a combination of a cartridge-type NEG pumping system with integrated ion pumping and vacuum chambers with NEG coating activated in advance between 180°C and 230°C in TiZrV of 0.5 µm thickness applied to more than 90% of their internal surface. The circumference of the storage ring is 354 meters. The chambers concerned by this call for tender represent approximately 80% of the total length of the vacuum sectors and straight sections of the storage ring (Phase I of SOLEIL II). The vacuum chambers will have to be integrated into a highly mechanically constrained environment, characterized by a high density of magnetic elements, imposing mechanical tolerances of the order of a few tenths of a millimeter. The characteristic inner diameters will be between 12 mm and 16 mm, for lengths between 500 mm and 2 000 mm. The vacuum chambers will have to ensure the dissipation of the incident photon power and will be manufactured exclusively in copper alloys of type CuCrZr and OFS. They will be cooled by water circulation and connected by UHV flanges of type MO or CF. After activation of the NEG coating, the vacuum must be less than 5 × 10⁻¹⁰ mbar without additional pumping device. The pumping performance of the NEG coating must comply with the reference values from the literature (in terms of pumping speed and sorption capacity). The contract will be divided into 5 lots corresponding to the different families of vacuum chambers, for a total volume of approximately 160 chambers. Candidates may respond to one or more lots. The negotiated procedure will take place in two successive phases: Phase 1: Selection of Tenders, Phase 2: Submission of an « offer » file by the selected candidates. Candidates must demonstrate a strong expertise in UHV and a mastery of the technologies for the manufacture of UHV vacuum chambers and NEG coatings for particle accelerators.