Fermi National Laboratory


Accelerator Update - July 30-August 1

Wednesday July 30
The day shift began with Operations monitoring store 2830, with the Antiproton Source (Pbar) stacking, and with MiniBooNE taking beam.

Pbar stopped stacking due to a controller problem at 8:20 AM. Operators contacted an expert and then prepared the tunnel for access. The expert replaced a power supply for a Programmable Logic Controller at 9:22 AM.

ComEd admitted that they had suffered two power glitches this morning at 3:18 AM and 5:19 AM. This accounts for the two Booster power supply trips (WAPS) this morning.

An expert began making changes to the Main Injector (MI) flying wires at 8:48 AM. He was finished with this by 3:18 PM.

MI expert began a study period at 8:55 AM.

A Linac RF station's (LRF2) water skid tripped of at 9:32 AM. Operators got the skid back on and a Linac expert had the station operating normally ten minutes later.

While the Linac and Pbar work was occurring, another Pbar expert repaired a Pbar Debuncher (DRF1) at 9:41 AM.

Linac beam resumed at 9:44 AM. MI and MiniBooNE beam resumed at 9:52 AM. Stacking resumed at 10:23 AM.

Earlier, a Booster RF station (BRF11) was brought back online. It tripped off twice at 10:47 AM and then at 10:49 AM and once again at 11:47 AM.

A Pbar Debuncher power supply (D:H301) tripped off at 11:26 AM. An expert replaced the supply and had it back in operation 35 minutes later.

At 1:30 PM, Operations received a fire alarm for the Tevatron (TeV) sector F0 service building. At the same time a F0 RF power supply caused a trip that aborted store 2830. RF expert investigated but could find nothing wrong. The thought was that maybe a two-way radio had caused the abort, but tests with the Fire Department didn't prove that out.

Operations put the TeV through a dry squeeze at 2:35 PM. TeV experts then began a study period at 3:07 PM.

At 9:06 PM, the TeV suffered a quench. A vacuum controls problem, which closed vacuum valves, may have been the cause of the quench. Operations contacted TeV and Vacuum experts at 10:11 PM.

Earlier, the Collider Detector Facility (CDF) and D-zero (D0) accessed their collision halls. CDF came out of access at 11:53 PM.

Thursday July 31
The midnight shift began with D0 in access, with the TeV recovering from a quench, with Pbar stacking, and with MiniBooNE taking beam.

D0 came out of access 12:02 AM.

Vacuum experts replace two controller cards at 12:31 AM.

Operations put the TeV through a dry squeeze at 2:05 AM.

Two Booster RF stations (BRF5 & 6) tripped off due to a vacuum burst. Everything reset okay.

A TeV study period ran from 3:30 AM to 5:51 AM and then went into shot setup.

At 8:10 AM, cryo technicians confirmed a valve problem with the wet engine at the sector A4 service building. They had the valve adjustment completed by 8:31 AM.

The TeV suffered a sector A1 quench at 8:57 AM. This occurred while ramping up for the next store. The store was lost. Investigators found no reason for this trip.

Pbar resumed stacking at 9:19 AM.

Linac suffered a temperature problem with its transition buncher cavity LCW. This turned off MiniBooNE for about twenty minutes.

A MI vacuum burst occurred at the NuMI stub at 5:54 PM. This halted stacking until 6:15 PM.

At 7:07 PM, the TeV suffered a sector F1 quench. A console in the Main Control Room froze at the beginning of a load proton aggregate.

A lightening and rainstorm rushed across the lab around 10 PM, which caused a few trips, alarms, and havoc for the operators, but nothing major happened.

Friday August 1
The midnight shift began with Operations setting up the TeV for a squeeze, with Pbar stacking, and with MiniBooNE taking beam.

Operations put the TeV into shot setup and at 3:52 AM established store 2847 with an initial luminosity of 3.5E31. Pbar resumed stacking.

CDF had a problem at 3:57 AM with equipment that lets them know when it's okay to start taking data. This problem was resolved by 5:46 AM.

At 5:32 AM, Booster beam problems required Operations to lessen the MiniBooNE beam intensity. This was still the case at 8 AM.

Today's Plan
The plan for today and for the weekend is to stack and store. Tomorrow, Saturday August 2, Wilson Hall will have a scheduled power outage from 7 AM to 5:30 PM.

Accelerator Update Archive

More Information
For Tevatron luminosity charts and the current status of Fermilab's accelerators and detectors (live!), please go to Fermilab Now

Comments and Suggestions
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