Dynamic Alignment at SLS

The relative alignment of components in the storage ring of the Swiss Light Source (SLS) is guaranteed by mechanical means. The magnets are rigidly fixed to 48 girders by means of alignment rails with tolerances of less than ±15 µm. The bending magnets, supported by 3 point ball bearings, overlap adjacent girders and thus establish virtual train links between the girders, located near the bending magnet centres. Keeping the distortion of the storage ring geometry within a tolerance of ±100 µ mi n order to guarantee sufficient dynamic apertures, requires continuous monitoring and correction of the girder locations. Two monitoring systems for the horizontal and the vertical direction will be installed to measure displacements of the train link between girders, which are due to ground settings and temperature effects: The hydrostatic levelling system (HLS) gives an absolute vertical reference, while the horizontal positioning system (HPS), which employs low cost linear encoders with sub-micron resolution, measures relative horizontal movements. The girder mover system based on five DC motors per girder allows a dynamic realignment of the storage ring within a working window of more than ±1 mm for girder translations and ±1 mrad for rotations. We will describe both monitoring systems (HLS and HPS) as well as the applied correction scheme based on the girder movers. We also show simulations indicating that beam based girder alignment takes care of most of the static closed orbit correction.