Design and development of tungsten-liquid argon modules for the ATLAS forward calorimeter system

The design of a tungsten-liquid argon calorimeter for the high |η| region of the ATLAS detector at the LHC is discussed. A novel design using hexagonally packed, tubular, thin gap electrodes running parallel to the beam direction is employed. The absorber matrix is composed of small “slugs” of sintered tungsten alloy. To test the mechanical design and construction methodology, a small engineering prototype, or “maquette”, has been constructed. This maquette is a full featured, full depth device, deviating from the final production modules only in lateral size.