Minutes of Feedthrough Meeting of 3 June 02 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Present: Pof, ML, FH, WW, PB Milestones: - The final electrical tests were completed for ft41. - ft43 was cold tested successfully, and the final electrical tests were also completed. - ft44 was welded and cold tested successfully. - ft45 was cabled and welded. - ft46 was cabled. - The last of the ambient and cold flanges were welded. We have sufficient numbers of welded flanges to complete ft54 (the 55th feedthrough) plus one spare each of the ambient flange and cold flange. *) Pierre Pailler sent this information last week: Some news on the End cap C Cryostat test program. The Cryostat has been remounted and turned to the test position (axis horizontal) last Thursday. After pumping the insulating vacuum volume we discovered that a leak was present, still yesterday, on the cold vessel about 10-6 mb.l/s with a pressure of 1.5 bar abs. in the cold vessel. Today after clearing some leaks on the Feedthrough chimneys the previous leak or background has disappeared. The background measurement on the insulating vacuum was between 2 and 3x10-9 mb.l/s this morning. We shall continue the leak check building up the pressure to 2.7 bar abs. in the cold vessel. The next step will be the cold test; the connections will be prepared next week and if nothing serious occur we expect to have the Cryostat ready for integration of the Feedthroughs by the end of June. Pierre later wrote to confirm that the endcap cryostat C cold vessel leak test at 2.7 bar was completed successfully. *) Aaron suggested (and everyone agreed) that we restrict ourselves to building only the simpler Standard and Special type feedthroughs during the period when most of the crew is in Geneva or on holiday. *) The ambient flange heater test apparatus has been turned over to us for trial heater tests. We expect to start using it this week. Wendy will be responsible for carrying out and documenting the tests. *) Laurent Serin informed us that Axon is still unable to produce the final pigtails with the "standard" micro-D connectors without a further sixteen week (minimum) delay: The muD connectors received by Axon from ITT canon to produce the last T52 and other pigtails are still not the ones used up to but with the new insulation. It seems that ITT canon do not want to produce old style connectors, and if Axon really insists, they are talking about minimal 16 weeks delivery delay which is quite not reasonable for us. In these conditions I believe we should accept to have these pigtails equipped with these new muD connectors. They say them to be more radiation resistant and we should as soon as possible in parallel to the production test them again possible pollution in the Argon. Making just a small computation, the volume of this new material is about 3.5 cm x 0.5 cm x 0.5 cm so almost 1 cm cube. I believe that typically the number of cable to produce is about 100 so 100 cm3 to be compared with a Argon volume of 30m3 in one endcap so that the proportion is 3e-6=3ppm so that even if these connectors had problems of pollution, there is not a very large risk of having problems. I apologize for all these problems with the end of the cable production. Could you let me know if you accept this strategy as soon as possible ? From an earlier note, Laurent informed me that there are 10 T47's, 24 T48's and 30 T52's held up by this problem (although there are actually 12 T47's, 29 T48's, 1 T49, and 30 T52's still to be delivered to us). On Michel's suggestion, the question of how to proceed will be addressed at a higher level. Michel has also suggested that if the green light is given to proceed with the "new" connectors (as it almost certainly will be) that we delay building feedthroughs with those cables having the new connectors until the results of the pollution tests are known. Unless the pollution tests can be done very soon, this will almost certainly delay the building of the last three feedthroughs (two Standard and one FCAL). Agenda for next week ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ -Milestones -Plans for the week -AOB