Monthly Report IR Demo FEL Upgrade and Commissioning Project

January 1999

 

 

 

Management

Highlights for the month:

The FEL project was shut down during the month of January for planned maintenance and

installation activities which were coordinated with the shutdown of the CEBAF accelerator during the same period. (FEL operations resumed on Feb. 10th).

Much of the FEL project management attention was given to high level visits and an important panel presentation during the month of January. On January 12th, the Secretary of Energy,

Bill Richardson visited the lab and toured the FEL Facility. On January 18-20, representatives from the FEL project and three user groups made presentations to DOE's panel on "Novel and Coherent Light Sources." Finally, considerable effort was devoted towards preparing for the visit of RADM Paul Gaffney, Chief of Naval Research, which occurred on Feb. 16th.

CA 321: Upgrade Cryomodule System

Pair Assembly

Cavity pair number IA017/018 was assembled and RF tested in the VTA. Poor performance was

observed on cavity IA018 with early field emission. The pair was then removed from the dewar and transferred to the cleanroom where it will be removed from the stand and disassembled. A new assembly will take place in early February.

Cryounit Assembly

Assembly number Ia074/76 had the instrumentation and tuner installed and was prepared for insertion into the helium vessel. Assembly number Ia012/23 had instrumentation installed and is waiting for tuner installation. Assembly number Ia004/6 is waiting for instrumentation installation.

Cryomodule assembly should begin the last week of February.

 

CA 521: FEL COMMISSIONING

No machine commissioning with electron beam took place during Jan 99 because of the planned

shutdown. As mentioned in the Installation section below, the time was used to refurbish the electron gun and to install new diagnostic hardware in the accelerator. Commissioning procedures were also refined. In particular, the "High-Power Setup Procedure" was revised to reflect lessons learned during the Dec. 98 run, and a new "FEL Driver Recovery Procedure/ Optimization Test Plan" was written.

 

FEL INSTALLATION

A list of "must-have" tasks for the January shut down was provided in last month's report. They

were all completed this month, as were a number of other tasks, such as installing three new viewers in the recirculation arcs. At month's end, the machine was ready to run, but the gun was still undergoing the end-stages of its refurbishment. FEL operations began on Feb. 10, 1999.