Brookhaven National Laboratory, Interdisciplinary Science Building (ISB)

The Brookhaven National Laboratory Interdisciplinary Science Building (ISB) is a state-of-the-art facility that groups existing energy-related research scientists into one facility with collaborative environments to facilitate and realize the scientific benefits of multi-disciplinary collaboration.

EW Howell Construction Group completed the 87,000 gross-square-foot, 2-story building in March 2013. This project is important for the Long Island economy. During the 2-year construction period, it helped to create hundreds of local jobs, and the majority of the construction costs were spent directly with Long Island subcontractors and suppliers.

The building contains nearly 60 laboratories, two with very unique features: a dry room with finite humidity control for assembling new batteries, and an “Oasis” laboratory — an ultra-low vibration laboratory that will provide the stability required for a cutting-edge “MIRAGE” Spectroscopic Imaging Scanning Tunneling Microscope. There, scientists will be able to grow samples within a vacuum-locked system and then transport them to the microscope without breaking the vacuum’s seal.

The biggest challenge the crew faced regarding this project was making the most of the state-of-the-art facility while not reducing sustainability and science targets. For example, the Hard X-Ray Nanoprobe (HXN) building. This sensitive facility houses one of the world’s brightest beam lines, so just a slight vibration could ruin an experiment. To guarantee that HXN would be vibration free, EW Howell added a unique concrete underlayment to stop vibrations from ruining future experiments.

To design the low vibrations HXN lab, EW Howell installed the facility 30 feet deep in the ground. The concrete walls measure 3 feet thick and the rooms are electromagnetically shielded against radiation. Inside the rooms are 80-ton inertia blocks, which hold the HXN and research equipment steady. With this stability, scientists can study particles at the nano or atomic level without any disturbances.

At the beginning of the project, BNL requested a clean room measuring at class 100 or 000. Halfway through the job, BNL asked for the clean room to be a dry room, where humidity is under 1 percent to work with lithium ion batteries. With the additional ductwork and strict fume hood standards, the workers needed to be flexible in the crowded area. Coordinating the different parts of this single project posed a significant challenge for electrical, mechanical and plumbing crews.

EW Howell finished the building March 2013, not only under budget but six months before the original deadline. Now, it houses different laboratories for different research.