Wednesday, December 02, 2015, 14:08

UO2/C was cast onto a graphite sheet in the fume hood and let dry.

Initial UO2 powder used = 25.11g (Inventory R-00835A, UO2 + bottle = 243.44g before use)

Graphite powder used = 5.16g

A 13mm punch was used to punch out discs from an 11mm wide strip.

5 discs were packed into one end of the graphite tube and a single 1cmx2cm strip was placed in the other end.

graphite tube = 4.57g

5 x UO2/C discs = 0.62g

2cm x 1cm strip = 0.21g

the graphite tube is placed inside a target boat.

The Ta-target boat is wrapped with 3-layers of heat shield and installed in Evap1.

Pumping down overnight.

Thursday, December 03, 2015, 09:23 

IG1 = 5.7e-6 Torr.

Stepped up manually to 60A.

Waited ~1hr45, vacuum stable.

IG1 = 6.3e-6 Torr.

Initiating auto-ramp.

Target boat will be ramped up to 520A at the rate of 0.1A/min.

Vacuum limit stop at 5.0e-5 Torr, backing off at 6.0e-5 Torr.

 Monday, December 07, 2015, 10:45

UO2/C reached 520A yesterday and has remained at max setpoint for 15hrs.

IG1 = 5.2e-6 Torr.

TGHT = 520A, 5.35V

Carbonization process is complete.

Initiating auto-cool at 2.0A/min.

 Wednesday, December 09, 2015, 10:09

Vented in argon and took the materials out yesterday.

Currently sitting in glove box.

All five discs and strip had fallen out of graphite tube and were sitting directly on the target boat.

^not sure if due to removal of heat shields [moving target boat around shook materials out of tube] or if this happened during carbonization process.

materials stuck to graphite foil fairly well, able to handle foils with tweezers and inspect without materials flaking off.

lightly scraped top of discs with spatula - no materials flaked off.

minor cracks are visible on discs.

graphite tube shows no visible changes.