A new gas system for FEBIAD operation was installed in ITE to enable us to use a calibrated leak which is attached to the target heat shield. This will allow us to control the quantity and purity of the gas going into the system, and to switch quickly between gasese and pressures.

The schematic of the system is attached. The use of the ballast container is likely not needed - it was originally included in case we want to run the system at pressures greater than 1 ATM. The roughing pump inlet limit is 1ATM, so it was envisaged to used the ballast container to reduce the pressure to that level or below before opening the system to the pump. But since it has been difficult to commission the system over 1ATM and this opens the door to several concerns about gas leakage, it was deemed better to keep operation below 1 ATM. This tank will likely be removed.

The storage tank was implemented because we are not sure if irradiated gases will be pulled out of the target lines when we pump on them, and so this was devised as a way to test that. The alternative is to have the exhaust of this pump go directly into nuclear ventilation by way of a plastic tube leaving the faraday cage, however this solution is also quite some work to implement. So the consensus was to start with the storage tank and sample it several times to understand what sorts of radioactivity we are dealing with, then make a decision about future operations.

This system has been tested offline using the development target UCx#44 and appears to work well. Unfortunately there were no protons available for this beam time so the gas sampling part of the system was not tested.

The operation of the rest of the system worked reasonably well. Beam disappeared when pumping out the lines and reappeared when re-opening the gas bottle. It seems that the storage container can be used to pump out the lines about 7 times before it gets up to around atmosphere, as was estimated based on volume. The pump can get the lines down to about 250mTorr as read by the pressure gauge DG2 on the module top, given about 30mins of pumping.

We did have some issue with the gauges, HV sparks destroyed both controllers and so we were unable to monitor pressures as we would have liked. It is possible one gauge itself is broken as well, to be investigated.

It may be that the gas leak we used was too small, but the idea of changing the pressure on the module by changing the needle valve didn't seem to work. This is not sure since we didn't have a reading on the pressure, but watching the ion beam as you turn the gas back on seemed quite binary. You would see no change until you had the needle valve fully open. This may be different with a larger leak, since this leak required about 1ATM in the lines to see anything. It is still not clear why this behaviour was different than the tests at the test stand, in which 0.5ATM of upstream pressure produced about 2nA of beam.

This system is considered a prototype and is not turned over to ops for operation. Further commissioning is required.

I started TCS water system this morning to check if the chillers work properly.

I finished the rest TM2 connections to CS, and started CS cooling package. Everything works fine so far.

3 turbo pumps on TM4 and CS have been started. The pumping down is good so far, The TM4 PNG1 reading is more than 10 times higher than IG1 which is at the same chamber. It could be a controller problem.  Other 3 high vacuum gauges behavior normal.  The TM4 IG1 is replaced today and it works fine now.

TM3 has been connected in CS.Three turbo- pumps have been started. The pumping down is fine so far.

I started TCS roughing pump. TM3 TP1 and TP2 will be started tomorrow morning.

TM2 in SMP with old SiC #39 target on it. SMP vacuum pump is started.

High  active water pump is started. The system resistance is recovering now. Everything works fine so far. Check ITW and ITE water leak after pump is started. Tiny very slow seep on two small ball valves pack seal. No big concern.                                 

TM3 turbo-pumps are started at TCS. We will keep pumps running until next Wednesday.

High active water system  was  checked before restart. A small water leak on resin can supply valve was found. It is fixed. MP1 and MP2 were started and checked separately. System pressure and flow rate are normal.MP1 is in operation now. 

It was noted on Nov. 9 that a squeaking noise was present when the turntable was rotated CCW with a module present.

Upon inspection, it appears the issue could be due to drive chain misalignment and improper tension. Furthermore, it was noted that a shaft collar on one of the existing chain tensioners was broken (a replacement was ordered).

Repairs will be performed on Nov. 19 to resolve these issues by re-aligning the chain, and resetting the tensioners. The turntable will be tested. This e-log will be updated once the work is complete and the system is returned to a functioning state. See Work Permit I2021-11-09--3

Edit, Nov. 19: the aforementioned repairs were completed and the turntable has been tested and is operating correctly. No squeaking noise is present. It is suggested to increase the diameter of the two chain tensioner shafts (and thus modify related bearing and shaft collar components) in order to prevent bending of the shaft which was observed. This will be done in the near future.

 New spring idlers were installed onto rotational chain drive for SHC roof. Operation ran smoothly in both directions to full limit. Chain was noted to have adequate slack when not on driven side. Periodic checks to confirm operation will continue in the following months to guarantee proper operation.

Targets NiO#1(101), Nb#5(85), TaC#1(92), and ZrC#5(81) have been moved from the storage vault and placed in the mini storage. The F-308 flasks have also been moved in to the target hall as well. The attached are the current statuses of both vaults.

All targets in the mini storage have been moved to F-308s and those flasks have been moved over to rad waste. The transfer of target occurred on January 10th and the flasks were moved to rad waste on January 11th.  Contamination was found on the bottoms of some of the pails and was removed, some of the contamination was difficult but not impossible to remove from the pail bottoms.

 The following targets have been moved from the spent target vault to the mini vault:

#127 - SiC#31 (front)

#132 - SiC#32 

#145 - UC#19

#150 - UC#20

#159 - UC#21 (back) 

Five spent targets have been moved from the Spent Target Vault to Mini Storage in preparation for transfer to F-308s in February. The following targets were moved Ta#35, Ta#39, SiC#27, UC#12, ThO#1

The following targets have been moved to the mini storage from the target storage vault:

1. Ta#38
2. Nb#7
3. TiC#3
4. SiC#29
5. NiO#2

These target will be removed from the mini storage and placed into the F-308's on December 3rd.

Spent targets in the mini storage were placed into the F-308s yesterday, all F-308 have been removed from the the target hall and they no reside for the time being in the hallway between the north and south hot cells.

UC#12 has been moved from the south hot cell and placed into storage. It is in pail #125 and in spot 1C of the vault it had a reading of 25.1mSv/hr upon removal from the south hot cell. See PDF for vault details.

SiC#31 has been moved to the spent target vault. It is in pail #127 and placed in spot 3C of the vault is was 489mSv/hr when removed from the south hot cell. See attached pdf for vault status