Welding of aluminium to high vacuum standards is far harder than for stainless steel and demands completely different techniques: The first aluminium chamber of any size wasВ made backВ in the 1980s, when NTE won the contract, against European competition, for 24 vacuum chambers for the Aleph detector at CERN. In this field NTE used to be and EGKENN probably is the only serious contender in the UK, and one of a handful in Europe. One of our specialities is making large, medium and smallВ aluminium vacuum chambers/vessels. For example it is a third of the weight which is important when the chambers are attached to the giant telescopes in Hawaii and Chile and in nuclear physics applications the chambers are often subjected to high radiation вЂ“ so aluminium's half life of 24 hours is extremely attractive compared to 22,000 years for stainless steel. However, for certain applications aluminium has some important advantages. You might imagine stainless steel to be the preferred material for vacuum chambers. Our core strength lies in its ability to provide the housings, vessels and fabricated structures forВ theВ projects such asВ ALMA, LIGO, KMOS orВ SCUBA 2 -a highly specialised camera for the use in 'submillimeter' astronomy.В General requirements include high accuracy, suitability for low temperature and /or high vacuum environments NTE's success wasВ based on expertise in welding and design techniques, and use of highly rigid machine tool technology. Back at NTE we haveВ developed a set of skills which have embedded it as a supplier to some of the world's most advanced technology organisations, including CERN, Culham, Rutherford Appleton, and the UK Astronomy Technology Centre.

Half life test chamber