Fermilab's Giant Electromagnet Arrives in Lemont

A 50-foot-wide particle storage ring finally arrived in Lemont on Saturday after a four-week trip from New York.

The giant electromagnet is nearing the end of a 3,200-mile journey from New York's Brookhaven National Laboratory to Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, just outside Batavia, where it will be used in an experiment called Muon g-2, and will study the properties of muons, tiny subatomic particles that exist for only 2.2 millionths of a second. 

Because the 17-ton, steel and aluminum ring cannot be taken apart, or tilted or twisted more than a few degrees without being irreparably damaged, the trip to Fermilab has been tricky. The ring has spent the last few weeks on a barge, heading down the East Coast, around the tip of Florida and up the Mississippi River to Illinois.

The ring arrived at the Ozinga port in Lemont on Saturday afternoon, and was loaded onto the back of a large truck on Sunday morning. The move attracted a crowd of more than two dozen people along the canal and the Lemont Road bridge.

The truck will remain in Lemont until Tuesday night, when it will begin a three-night trek to Fermilab.

The ring is one of the widest loads ever to be transported across roads in Illinois, according to Fermilab officials, so the proposed route takes it across the widest roads available, including I-355 and I-88. 

Because the truck will move at about 5 miles per hour and will require portions of roads to be closed, the move from the port to Fermilab is scheduled to take place on three consecutive nights (July 23-25) with escort from police and other officials.

Around 11 p.m. Tuesday, the ring will start traveling north on Lemont Road to 87th Street, then west to Costco in Bolingbrook, where it is scheduled to arrive around 5 a.m. Wednesday.

On Wednesday night, the ring will travel west on 87th Street to I-355, north on I-355 to Route 56, west on Route 56 to 53 and south on Route 53 to the Hidden Lake Forest Preserve in Glen Ellyn.

On Thursday, July 25, the ring will stay at the forest preserve until 11 p.m., and then will travel south on Route 53 to I-88, west on I-88 to Route 59, north on Route 59 to Ferry Road, west on Ferry Road to Eola Road, north on Eola Road to the Fermilab site.

No disruption of commuter traffic is expected, officials said.

The electromagnet is then expected to arrive on the Fermilab site early Friday morning, July 26.

“It’s been a very long journey, and it took a lot of work from dozens of people,” said Chris Polly, the project’s manager at Fermilab, in a press release. “Now that it’s almost here, the excitement is building. We’re eager to get the magnet here and start the experiment.”
On the afternoon of July 26, the ring will move the last few miles across the Fermilab site. The public is invited to celebrate the ring's arrival at 5:30 p.m. at Wilson Hall, where there will be hands-on activities and the opportunity to pose for a massive group photo.

“A 50-foot-wide electromagnet rolling down a road is really something to see,” said David Hertzog of the University of Washington, co-spokesman for the Muon g-2 experiment. “As excited as we are about the new physics this experiment may uncover, we’re equally thrilled to see the magnet making its last few steps home.”

Details of the Fermilab celebration are posted on http://muon-g-2.fnal.gov/bigmove, along with a GPS-powered map that shows the location of the magnet on its journey. Updates will be posted to the site, both before and during the move along Illinois roadways, according to Fermi officials.