The time is ripe for the community development of new and better multianvil techniques in the United States, and for the enhanced sharing of information about multianvil techniques. There are over 20 laboratories operating in the US, many of them with funding from NSF, and a new press with tooling that is consistent with the great majority of these laboratories has recently been installed at the Advanced Photon Source. A program of coordinated cell assembly development, bringing together the expertise that exists throughout the community, and involving sophisticated design (new ceramics, thermal modeling, thorough review of currently existing cell assemblies), testing (calibration, in-situ studies) and fabrication (better machining, plus the use of new techniques in fabricating small parts) is needed. This will result in stable, reliable, and well-characterized cell assemblies, and will benefit the entire community. COMPRES is a perfect umbrella for such an effort.

Here it is proposed that a segment of COMPRES be devoted to performing such an effort. Collaborative gatherings of multianvil researchers (sometimes piggybacking on meetings such as AGU to save time and money), and open dissemination of information, will result in the creation of workable multianvil cell assembly designs. The design phase will include heat flow calculations to learn how to reduce thermal gradients, careful characterization of ceramics, metals, etc., and the consideration of new cell assembly materials with promising properties. A machining facility will be created, with an automated high-speed CNC lathe and tooling specialized for the turning and machining of porous and green ceramics, and will be used for the production of prototype assemblies. The testing and calibration phase will consist of tests in individual laboratories and measurements of pressure and thermal gradients using the T-cup at the APS beamline. Finally, the fabrication phase will move beyond the prototype phase, and will consist of the identification of ceramics and other companies that can make the cell assembly parts in a production mode.

The examples shown in this poster are currently active projects that give the overall flavor of the developments that are proposed here; however, when the community is involved within COMPRES, a much wider array of developments and a significant improvement in the effectiveness of multianvil cell assemblies will be possible.

(map will show labs as red dots)

Fig. There are over 20 multianvil laboratories operating in the U.S. as of the year 2001.

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