Beam Delivery Report
Status reports on beam delivery at TRIUMF, and part of the Beam Delivery group's Guide for Experimenters.
Past reports can be found here.
10:49, 10 May 2010 (PDT)
After all of last week's problems we were able to run relatively smoothly over the weekend. The cyclotron is currently delivering ~110 µA to BL1A, 65 µA to BL2A, and ~65 µA to BL2C4. Transmission through the machine is still poor, though, so some tuning work is likely required.
The current state of the machine and plans for the coming week will be discussed in some detail at the weekly Ops/performance meeting (11:00 in the Auditorium). All are encouraged to attend. — Morton
22:59, 7 May 2010 (PDT)—WEEKEND UPDATE
The dee voltage is at 90 kV, the Linde motor frequency is still relatively stable—there's certainly no evidence of the fast oscillations we were seeing all week—and beam has been injected. There are currently 30+ µA being extracted down BL1A, with BL2A and 2C4 to follow. The transmission is still poor (not surprising, given that the machine has been off for most of the last six days) and the machine will likely need several hours to settle down, but it's a start.
Should the cryogenic system hold, the plan is to run high currents in all three beamlines over the weekend: BL1A is always run at >100 µA, while ISAC will want 65 µA in BL2A and BL2C4 will need 60–70 µA for isotope production. It will likely take some time to bring the total extracted current to the 245 µA or so that we'd like. In addition, there may be periods of reduced beam intensity to accommodate cyclotron tuning. We appreciate how patient everyone has been through this, but we still need a few more days to get back to where we should be.
Thanks. — Morton
18:07, 7 May 2010 (PDT)
And here we go again: The RF dee voltage is at 70 kV and (so far) the Linde appears to be holding steady. Ops has been asked not to increase the dee voltage faster than ~10 kV/hour, so it would still be ~20:00 or so before they'd be at 90 kV and some time after that before they'd be in a position to try injecting into the cyclotron. The plan is to deliver beam if possible, though the current may be limited as the RF settles down. — Morton
14:34, 7 May 2010 (PDT)
Things are still a mess—last night's attempt to restore the RF failed as the Linde motor frequency became unstable (again). An engineer from Linde is en route from Tulsa, Oklahoma; he'll be on site tomorrow morning to try to diagnose the problem. In the meantime, we're going to keep trying to get things going. Another attempt is being made to bring the RF online in the hopes that the cryogenics will remain stable, but even if this attempt is successful there is clearly a problem which will still have to be addressed. — Morton
19:42, 6 May 2010 (PDT)
After defrosting overnight, the cyclotron cryogenics system was restarted this morning. The tank vacuum is good and the system appears to be stable. The RF was started about half an hour ago and the dee voltage is slowly being brought up to its operating value of 90 kV. If things remain stable, injection and extraction down BL1A will follow, with extraction down BL2C4 and 2A after that. Again, check the cyclotron and ISAC logs for more information. — Morton
15:03, 5 May 2010 (PDT)
Beam will be off until at least tomorrow morning as the cryopanel system is brought back to room temperature and then re-cooled. We're taking the opportunity to perform unrelated maintenance, including the ISIS backplate change that was going to be necessary next week. Hopefully we'll know more by tomorrow. — Morton
08:34, 5 May 2010 (PDT)
And we're down again. We had beam briefly overnight, but the same problems resurfaced around 3:00 this morning. As usual, we have no idea how long it will take to resume beam—until the cryogenics and RF groups give the okay to restart the RF, we can't make any estimates
If you have any maintenance jobs that might take a few hours but can be wrapped up in an hour if the word is given to restart the RF, today would probably be a good day to do them. Contact Ops if you need a work permit; they'll be able to advise. — Morton
15:24, 4 May 2010 (PDT)
Work on the Linde is continuing, but there's still no reliable estimate of how long it will be until the problem is under control. Ops is posting updates on the Cyclotron Status page; additional information may be found in the Cyclotron and ISAC logs. — Morton
08:14, 4 May 2010 (PDT)
The good news? We were able to deliver beam overnight. The bad news? The same issues we've been having with the Linde resurfaced overnight. The RF has been off since ~07:00 this morning. We don't know how long it will be until it's restored.
The vacuum and RF experts are working on the problem in consultation with outside experts. Once the cryogenic system is stable, we expect a startup like yesterday's (i.e. a few hours from injection to full current in all beamlines). — Morton
17:57, 3 May 2010 (PDT)
As you may have noticed, the cyclotron is operating and beam has been restored. We're currently delivering ~115 µA down BL1A and 65 µA down BL2A, though this may be reduced for periods overnight and through tomorrow to allow Ops to work on the cyclotron tune. The Linde unit that supplies cold He gas to the cryopanels appears to be holding.
RIB tuning has resumed at ISAC. The hope is to switch from tuning to delivery of 11Li to experiment S1147 within the next few hours. — Morton
12:45, 3 May 2010 (PDT)
While we were able to restore beam for a couple of days following last week's repair of the extraction probe, we have been unable to deliver beam since Saturday night due to problems with the cyclotron cryogenics system. (Large cryogenically cooled panels are used to trap hydrogen and other trace gases as part of the cyclotron vacuum system; without reliable cryogenics, we don't have reliable vacuum.) A final effort is being made, in consultation with outside experts, to bring the system into regulation in the hopes of restoring cyclotron RF this afternoon (with injection to follow some time after that), but at this point we still don't have a good estimate of how long it will be before beam delivery resumes. — Morton
20:55, 29 April 2010 (PDT)
The cyclotron is still offline following yesterday's failure of the BL1A extraction probe. During a routine foil change the old extraction foil hung up on the probe mechanism; the cyclotron had to be vented for that foil to be removed before the probe could be withdrawn to its housing and repaired. The tank is back under vacuum and the probe is currently being tested. If all goes well, we expect proton beam delivery to resume tomorrow.
At ISAC, S1151 wraps up tonight. We begin stable beam tuning for the upcoming RIB experiments at ISAC-II tomorrow. We also hope to bring the new production target online, with target scans tomorrow and yield measurements over the weekend. RIB delivery to experiment S1147 is scheduled for Monday. — Morton
13:40, 27 April 2010 (PDT)
The cyclotron is currently delivering ~125 µA to BL1A and ~75 µA to BL2C4. This is expected to continue overnight, with maintenance, beam development, and training planned for tomorrow. Regular beam delivery is scheduled to resume 08:30 Thursday with BL2A also coming online.
16O delivery to experiment S1151 is continuing at ISAC-II. That run will end Friday morning with stable beam tuning for two upcoming RIB experiments at ISAC-II to follow. — Morton
10:48, 23 April 2010 (PDT)—WEEKEND UPDATE
The second round of patient treatments is complete. PT will continue Saturday and Sunday at 08:30. There are no interruptions planned for Monday; usually PT starts on a Friday (with setup on Thursday) so that the standard four rounds of treatment finishes the following Monday, but this week's treatment started a day earlier than usual. In the meantime, the cyclotron continues to deliver ~125 µA to BL1A. BL2C4 will come back online Sunday, with BL2A expected to remain offline until after Wednesday's maintenance.
Stable beam delivery is still planned at ISAC, with experiment S1151 scheduled to start Sunday. — Morton
22:33, 20 April 2010 (PDT)
Cyclotron development was held up this morning when it became necessary to replace the ISIS backplate on short notice. That had originally been planned for next week's 24-hour maintenance. Beam is expected to be restored to BL1A some time tonight. BL2A will remain offline until next week.
Patient treatment is scheduled on BL2C1 for the next five days (though only setup is planned for Wednesday). There are two patients, so expect ~2 hours each morning in which beam will not be available in BL1A. — Morton
16:46, 19 April 2010 (PDT)
The cyclotron is currently delivering ~115 µA to BL1A and ~75 µA to the Solid Target Facility (STF) on BL2C4. ISAC will remain offline (mostly—see below) until next week.
The beam development shift scheduled for April 28 has been moved to tomorrow (April 20) so that high-current development can be carried out using all three beamlines. The west target station at ISAC will be kept available until that is finished, then shut down so that the spent target can be removed next week. The 24-hour maintenance scheduled for April 29 will be moved to April 28 so that startup of the next ISAC production target can start a day earlier than originally planned; this will also prevent us having to start the cyclotron back up (following the scheduled ion source filament change) on a Friday. Otherwise the schedule will remain as-is, with the next experiment to take RIB at ISAC being experiment S1147 at TUDA-II.
The up-to-date beam schedule can be found here. — Morton
23:04, 18 April 2010 (PDT)
ISAC is currently off-line as the ionizer on the RIB production target failed yesterday morning. There will be meetings tomorrow (Monday) to determine a course of action and what, if any, changes will be made to the schedule. The new target is not scheduled to come on-line until April 30. In the meantime, the cyclotron continues to deliver ~120 µA to BL1A and ~70 µA to BL2C4. This is not likely to change before Tuesday's "maintenance if required" shift. — Morton
21:12, 16 April 2010 (PDT)—WEEKEND UPDATE
The cyclotron has been a bit unstable since about 13:00 today, but we're continuing to deliver ~110/70/70 µA to BL1A/2A/2C4, respectively. We'd still like about another 10 µA from the machine, but otherwise there are no plans to change things over the weekend.
S1007 continues to run at ISAC. They plan to take beam over the weekend as they've been doing, with long implant/decay counting cycles controlled manually by ISAC Ops. They may switch to shorter cycles on Monday, but otherwise we expect no changes before next Tuesday's if-required maintenance. — Morton
17:29, 15 April 2010 (PDT)
Things are running much more smoothly than they were earlier in the week. We're currently delivering ~110/70/70 µA to BL1A/2A/2C4, respectively. Our goal is to maintain a total extracted current of 260 µA, so we're close (and have exceeded that off-and-on all day).
At ISAC, 115Ag is being delivered to experiment S1007 at the 8π. This will continue until next Tuesday. On the stable beam side, ISAC-II development and commissioning continues. — Morton
18:53, 9 April 2010 (PDT) (WEEKEND UPDATE)
Beam was restored this morning, but the cyclotron is still not happy—the transmission is poor, and that's limiting the amount of beam that can be extracted. We've been delivering ~100/60/60 µA to BL1A/2A/2C4 all day, about 15% less than we'd like. Now that the machine's had a chance to settle down—the RF hasn't yet been on for 24 hours since recovering from yesterday's power bump—efforts will be made to tune the cyclotron this evening in the hopes of increasing the current in all three beamlines.
Both RIB and stable beam are being delivered at ISAC, 8Li to M1226 (βNQR) and 16O to DRAGON for a study of the acceptance of the spectrometer. Both of these are scheduled to continue over the weekend. On the RIB side, TRILIS development and setup to the 8π will follow; on the stable beam side, ISAC-II development. — Morton
17:48, 8 April 2010 (PDT)
We're still waiting on cyclotron vacuum and RF. Otherwise things are largely recovered—beamline vacuums are good, ISIS is running (with beam extracted to the fast target), ISAC is ready to go, and experts are working on the stable beam tune through the ISAC accelerators for tomorrow's DRAGON test run. The estimate earlier today was for beam in BL1A around 20:00 or 21:00 this evening (with BL2A to follow); that may be optimistic, but things are coming together. Again, check the logs for more information. — Morton
09:03, 8 April 2010 (PDT)
A BIG power bump this morning at about 02:45 knocked everything—RF, main magnet, vacuum—off-line. ISAC had a slew of failures as well. Recovery is underway, but we don't know how long it's going to take. Check the cyclotron and ISAC logs for more information:
We'll update things as we know more. — Morton
20:44, 7 April 2010 (PDT)
Last night's ISIS development ran much longer than expected and resulted in a need for a fair bit of cyclotron tuning. That's why protons weren't restored until this morning. Now that they have been, we're delivering 105/70/55 µA to BL1A/2A/2C4, respectively with µSR experiments running on M9 and M20. PiENu continues to run on M13 while M15 is still being used for testing.
8Li is in the process of being delivered to the βNQR facility at ISAC (about eight hours later than we'd hoped, but still—barely—according to the published schedule). That experiment will run until Monday morning. Otherwise no changes to RIB delivery are expected. The DRAGON group will take stable beam (16O) from OLIS over the weekend to investigate the acceptance of their spectrometer. — Morton
20:58, 6 April 2010 (PDT)
The first long maintenance/ISIS filament change of the schedule is drawing to a close. The plan was to implement a new theoretical tune for ISIS before injection and beam delivery later this evening. Some proton beam is expected overnight.
ISAC is between experiments. Tonight's plan is to restore and check the tune to the yield station once protons are restored so that the yields of Li isotopes can be checked tomorrow morning. Once that's complete, the tune to βNQR will be restored and checked before delivery to the next experiment (hopefully by mid-day or so). — Morton
07:43, 25 March 2010 (PDT)
All three beamlines are now online: BL1A (~105 µA), 2A (10 µA), and 2C4 (~35 µA). The beam energy in both 1A and 2A is 480 MeV. The 2A and 2C4 currents will both be increased over the next few days as targets improve, etc.
A target scan on BL2A will likely be carried out at some point today. Otherwise beam tuning is still in progress. — Morton
20:43, 23 March 2010 (PDT)
Beam is currently running down BL1A and 2C4 (~100 µA and 25 µA, respectively). The 2C4 current is limited by STF water conductivity and will be increased as that improves. ISAC is not expected to request protons down BL2A until late Wednesday at the earliest.
The cyclotron is currently delivering protons at 500 MeV. Depending on how startup proceeds, the beam energy may be reduced to 480 MeV for the start of this running period in order to test the machine stability and production yields on the different beamlines at this energy. Running at 480 MeV reduces the cyclotron spills (as the H- beam makes fewer turns at high energy) which, in turn, reduces activation due to scattered beam. If we can run at 480 MeV on a routine basis, it would reduce the fields in the vault during shutdown allowing for work to begin sooner in shutdown with less dose to those doing the work. — Morton
16:17, 18 March 2010 (PDT)
And we're back.
We're approaching the end of shutdown. The cyclotron is under vacuum, the main magnet is on, and both the RF and the inflector are at or near operating voltage. ISIS is running and the tuning effort is underway; the hope is to inject beam into the cyclotron within the next couple of days. Extraction down BL1A will follow, with extraction down BL2A planned for next week.
Regular beam delivery reports will commence next week. — Morton