Technical Challenges in Design and Construction of FRIB

The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) will be a world-leading, DOE Office of Science national user facility for the study of nuclear structure, reactions, and astrophysics on the campus of Michigan State University (MSU). A superconducting, heavy-ion, driver linac will be used to provide stable beams of >200 MeV/u at beam powers up to 400 kW (~650 electrical micro-amps for uranium). The stable beams will be used to produce rare isotopes by in flight fragment separation. After fragment selection, the rare isotopes will be used at velocity (~0.5c), stopped, or reaccelerated. An overview of the project, project challenges, and mitigating strategies is presented.