Upton, NY – The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has awarded $3.55 million to Construction Consultants of Long Island of Riverhead, NY, for construction of a satellite building to house the Soft Inelastic X-ray Scattering (SIX) beamline at the Lab's National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II). 

"The opportunity to perform construction such as this using local contractors is a win-win for both the Laboratory and Long Island," said Tom Joos, the Lead Project Civil/Structural Engineer for NSLS-II. "Brookhaven Lab gets to tap the available capabilities and resources of these very qualified firms, and the Long Island economy benefits by having these construction dollars spent locally."

The National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) is the newest large-scale scientific facility nearing completion at Brookhaven Lab. Construction of the synchrotron's half-mile ring building is complete, and the beamlines — where scientific experiments will be conducted — are beginning to take shape. 

The state-of-the-art SIX beamline will allow scientists from around the world to study the electronic and magnetic properties of matter through spectroscopy and x-ray scattering instruments, which will be housed in a satellite building adjacent to NSLS-II. 

The building will have a roof height of 22 feet to allow for clearance as the spectrometer arm swings around and will be approximately 9000 square feet in size, including the experimental area and the control, electrical, and mechanical rooms. 

The 500-cubic yard concrete foundation for the SIX satellite building was completed in early November by the concrete subcontractor, JMR Concrete Corp. from North Babylon, New York. 

Construction Consultants of Long Island has begun erecting structural steel, which is scheduled to be completed by late December, with work to build the exterior walls, roofing and siding to follow. The satellite building is scheduled to be weather tight by the end of February 2014. 

At that point, work will begin on the interior finishing and the installation of the mechanical/electrical equipment. The building is scheduled to be completed by June 2014.

The National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) will provide intense beams of infrared, ultraviolet, and x-ray light for basic and applied research in physics, chemistry, medicine, geophysics, and environmental and materials sciences. Supported by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences within the U.S. Department of Energy, the NSLS-II will be one of the world's brightest synchrotron light sources when it opens in 2015. For more information, visit www.bnl.gov/nsls2.