Wednesday, March 28, 2018, 11:35

D-shaped discs were cut from cast 2, the same as the last sample of 1stepUCx [see elog i.d. 197]

A 13mm punch was used to punch out discs from pre-cut strips using the old method.

The target consists of 195 discs with 8.1cm in length - all single discs, no packs.

195 x UO2/C discs = 19.79g

Graphite insert is placed inside a target boat with both endcaps on.

Boat previously coated with TaC and sintered.

Ta-target boat is wrapped with 3-layers of heat shield and installed in evap1 yesterday afternoon.

Chamber pumped down overnight.

 Wednesday, March 28, 2018, 13:33

IGP1 = 4.03e-7 Torr

Tapped up TGHT manually to 80A, 0.83V - waited 50min, vacuum started to drop/stabilize.

Continued to tap up manually to 430A, 4.22V

Started out slow with a rate of ~10A/5min, and slowly increased to a rate of ~10A/min as vacuum stabilized, slowing down again when reaching carbonization outgassing.

Auto ramp at 0.2A/min from 430A-520A.

Thursday, March 29, 2018, 10:04

Reached 520A around 2am.

TGHT = 520A, 5.13V

IGP1 = 1.74e-6 Torr

Initiated auto-cool this morning at a rate of 1.0A/min.