Introduction

People

Equipment

The machine shop is very well equipped for small to quite large prototypes or custom builds. It has conventional and CNC tools, sheet metal tools, welding tools, 3D printers and more. Here is a list of our machines and the maximum sizes they can accept:

Examples of current/past projects

• ATLAS ITk Tracker Upgrade: The machine shop has been instrumental in supporting the Carleton group in the R&D, prototyping, production and testing of the ITk thin silicon microstrip sensors. The machine shop has built the “cold chuck” that can hold the sensor in place using vacuum and provide all the electrical and signal interfaces to bias the sensor and readout the associated leakage current. The TK-jig design and fabrication quality made it the standard test stand used by the entire ITk strip project with TK-jig prototypes fabricated by the Resource shipped to six collaborating ITk labs in Europe and North America.
• Barium tagging for neutrinoless-double-beta-decays: The Ba ion tagging R&D program in Canada aims at developing an efficient experimental method for extracting, transporting and detecting single ions from a liquid xenon (LXe) TPC such as nEXO.The Udem shop has constructed several apparatus for that research program, such as parts of the multi-reflection time-of-flight mass spectrometer, quadrupole mass filter and a linear Paul trap for laser fluorescence spectroscopy.
• Hyper-K neutrino experiment: Hyper-K is a next generation neutrino oscillation experiment aiming at measuring CP violation in the neutrino sector. The UdeM machine shop has played an important role to assist the development of various mPMT prototypes for Hyper-K, such as manufacturing stainless steel back plates with fine machined features. 
• nEXO experiment at SNOLAB: The UdeM machine shop has assisted the EXO/nEXO Canadians collaborators. Recent projects include the manufacturing of an installation jig for the source guide tube of the calibration system, as well as complex source storage cassettes that each include a sprocket for source deployment in EXO-200. Also, inline xenon-radon traps were built by the Resource for the R&D of the radon removal system.
• PICO dark matter experiment: The UdeM machine shop has built several part of the various generations of PICO experiments. One notable example is a key custom pressure feedthrough for PICO-40L that had been commercially purchased but failed due to the manufacturer’s inability to conform to the tolerances of the complex component. The UdeM machine shop was able to produce a replacement component in short order, saving months of delay. 
• SBC dark matter experiment: The UdeM shop is building part of that future dark matter experiments. It fabricated custom plumbing for the very complicated gas system. The machine shop will build the detectors’ position sensors, SiPM support structure, LED rings and the welding of the central bellows assembly, a task that no other university shop in Canada was able to complete for the SBC collaboration.

The machine shop equipment includes three vertical milling machines (bed type) plus one high precision state-of-the-art CNC milling machine, four lathes including a 12 feet long large bed diameter unit (24”), which allows the construction of prototypes and vacuum chamber elements and a CNC lathe. In addition, an 8 feet sheer and bending machine is available for sheet metal work as well as several hydraulic presses. The machine shop has all the needed facilities for high quality vacuum welding on stainless steel, steel aluminum, brass and copper with MIG, TIG and spot welding machines. The machine shop also has a sand blasting chamber, laser cutting and 3D printing capability.