Welcome to TranSystems | Automation Associates, Inc.'s monthly Innovations, where we share best practices in simulation engineering through case studies and industry experience. In this month's issue, we focus on a simulation-based cost-modeling tool that is assisting the global particle physics community to analyze various construction, manufacturing and delivery scenarios.

Construction Cost Modeling for the International Linear Collider

In the past century, physicists have tried to explain the origin of mass. Experiments and observations have pointed to evidence that we can only account for a surprising five percent of the universe. The global particle physics community believes that a precision machine — the International Linear Collider (ILC), a proposed electron-positron accelerator, will allow researchers to explore extremely high-energy regions that may answer questions about what the universe is made of and provide new insights into how it works.

As a part of an international collaboration that consists of about 2000 people from more than 100 universities and laboratories in over two dozen countries, Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois has a leadership role in working with the United States and international particle physics community and the Department of Energy Office of Science to design and build the proposed ILC. Fermilab's world-class scientific research facility has always been at the forefront of high-energy physics and related disciplines.

The ILC consists of two linear accelerators, each approximately 11km long that accelerate and direct particles to interaction regions where detectors are located. The critical component in achieving this acceleration is a Cryomodule containing eight superconducting Radio Frequency (RF) cavities, used to impart energy and accelerate the electrons and positrons. In order to achieve the required acceleration, approximately 2,000 Cryomodules must be produced and installed at the to-be-determined location of the ILC.

TranSystems recently developed a simulation-based cost-modeling tool to help the ILC team at Fermilab analyze various construction, manufacturing and delivery scenarios and get an accurate estimate of the Cryomodule’s cost. The ILC under construction will have an extremely large and complicated international supply chain. Because of the uncertainty of the fabrication and final assembly locations, the exchange rates, transportation costs and assembly scenarios are a major item of interest for the team. Read More.

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Did you miss last month's edition of Innovations, that discussed how one of the worlds largest sportswear brands used simulation analysis on a planned distribution center to ensure that it met all its operating capabilities.