An overview of mechanical design aspects and challenges of the EBS project will be given. The mechanical design includes; vacuum chambers, photon absorbers, supports, girders and front-ends.

Designing a new storage ring in a limited time with the constraints of reusing the tunnel and infrastructure together with the requirement of maintaining the ESRF’s beam are real challenges.

The support of the storage ring magnets and vacuum chambers will rely on 128, vertically motorized, identical girders (4 girders for each of the 32 storage ring cells).

A conservative approach has been chosen for the vacuum system layout. Vacuum chambers with antechamber will provide space and access for discrete ultra-high vacuum (UHV) pumps and lumped absorbers.

In addition, the vacuum chamber distribution should also facilitate the preparation of pre- assembled girders with magnets, vacuum chambers and vacuum equipment.

Most of the front-ends components will be reused. The front-end slits and photon absorbers will be motorized to allow fine alignment during the commissioning period of the beamlines.