Move-in and installation of a proton accelerator

Saving lives can be a heavy burden, as SCHOLPP employees in Dresden found out when they installed a proton irradiation unit for cancer treatment in the new building of Dresden University Hospital. The innovative irradiation unit, including cyclotron, gantry and beamline, tipped the scales at over 330 tonnes. The first stage in the project was transporting the two-part cyclotron from Belgium to Dresden. Then the upper and lower sections were lifted into the building through an opening in the roof with a SCHOLPP S-GK 700 large crane. Next the two parts were assembled and erected to rigorous technical standards. After lifting in the 110-tonne gantry, the treatment unit required extensive installation work. The SCHOLPP team spent around three months assembling, installing and cabling the gantry. Over a thousand cables measuring more than 20 kilometres in total were installed, tested and logged. While the installation was under way, additional SCHOLPP specialists were busy setting up the beamline. The combination of over 50 magnets weighing between one and 12 tonnes had to be aligned with the greatest precision. The specialists used numerous dial gauges and high-precision laser measuring instruments to calibrate and set the magnets to within 0.01 millimetres across multiple rooms and various levels of the building.