From the Directors
Dear Colleagues,

2020 was an extraordinary year. The COVID-19 pandemic impacted everyone’s lives in ways we could not have foreseen. The pandemic has changed how we interact, learn, teach, work and pursue science. Overall, social distancing has led to a more virtual existence. During the recently concluded CHESS experimental run, the storage ring was operated remotely by the accelerator team and all CHESS beamlines successfully supported users in remote, mail-in, and “joint-venture” modes. A combination of communicating via email, Zoom, Slack channels and the new REACH CHESS online systems allowed us to operate the facility; plan, troubleshoot and conduct experiments; hold the CHESS Users Meeting as well as several workshops; mentor students through summer programs and internships; develop new funding proposals; recruit new staff and much more. The CHESS community meet incredible challenges with creativity, hard work and – whenever possible – good humor.

COVID-19 will continue to impact our lives in 2021 and for now experiments, workshops and meetings will be conducted remotely to ensure the safety of CHESS staff and users.

Looking ahead to 2021, we are embarking on a strategic planning process to identify areas of research and new partnerships that will benefit uniquely from CHESS capabilities. There are currently four beamlines at CHESS that could support user programs in addition to the 7 beamlines currently funded by NSF, AFRL, NIH/NY state. Moreover, with NSF funding for the high field magnet beamline, a new CHESS experimental hall is expected to be built next to Wilson Lab with space for an additional three new beamlines (by 2026). Overall, the number of CHESS beamlines could double between now and 2026. This is an exciting opportunity for CHESS that our strategic plan is intended to address. We are planning a series of national workshops for spring 2021 that then lead to whitepapers for the operation and/or construction of additional CHESS beamlines. We hope you will join us!

Thanks to all of you for your contributions to CHESS this year and best wishes for 2021.

Stay healthy and stay safe,
Joel Brock, Director, CHESS
Elke Arenholz, Associate Director, CHESS
SUNY Delhi Mechatronics Shows Importance of Diverse Skill Set
The mechatronics program at SUNY Delhi is a first-of-its kind in New York State, and the internship at CHESS has quickly become a highly sought-after opportunity for the incoming senior class. The R&D experience that CHESS offers is extremely rare, and can help propel students to an advantage when they are applying for jobs after graduation.
Developing the Next Generation of CHESS Compact Undulators
A key enabling technology for the recent CHESS-U upgrade was the CHESS Compact Undulator (CCU). Progress is now being made towards a new generation of even higher performance compact insertion devices, with variable gaps and thermal compensation capabilities.
X-rays quantify stress gradients at twin boundaries, which can drive fatigue failure in nickel-based superalloys.
Predicting crack initiation in engineering alloys is a significant challenge. The comprehensive work of Gustafson and collaborators reported here employs four different high-energy x-ray techniques at two different synchrotrons, combined with advanced crystal plasticity models, to quantify the stress gradients that can lead to fatigue failure in a single sample of Ni-based superalloy.
Revealing Filler Morphology in 3D-Printed Thermoset Nanocomposites by Scanning Microbeam X-ray Scattering
3D printing leads to many defects and interfaces within printed parts. Failure during performance in the road-to-road and layer-by-layer processed parts appears at these interfaces and defects. Understanding the root cause of these limitations is key.
Recap: Building a Science Gateway for Structural Materials Analysis at CHESS I
On December 9th and 10th, CHESS hosted the first in a series of workshops for launching a Science Gateway on the Galaxy software platform at CHESS. The workshop was open to members of the structural materials science synchrotron community for whom the X-ray Imaging of Microstructures Gateway, XIMG, will be developed.
CHESS virtual Users Meeting featured in SRN
The success of our June 2020 virtual Users Meeting was featured in the latest issue of Synchrotron Radiation News. Head over to SRN's site to read the article.
Issue No. 78 • 2020.12.15
CHESS
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