CH PAS Master Timeline

Timeline

This page will be used to document when each task is started/completed as a master reference for all work accomplished. The plan is to make my life easier when I have to look through months of work.

May

5/10/21

• Attended intern orientation for first day at INL

• Completed training this week as well as began NaI plateau setup

5/11/21

• Put first coat of paint onto lead bricks to be used as shielding in PAS experiment

5/12/21

• Moved steel table from LDS to clean room and began set up

5/17/21

• Sheared a lead sheet into 6 rough 3"x3" squares to be used for attenuation measurements with NaI detectors

• Lead sheet pieces were wiped down with a wet wipe, duct taped, rewiped, and hammered flat.

5/18/21

• Began data collection for NaI plateau and operating point measurements

• Began writing analysis code for NaI plateau measurements

5/27/21

• Finished painting lead bricks and left to cure

Unknown time when tasks were completed

• Gathered borated poly with Paul

• Tested NaI detectors and found one working base

June

6/1/21

• Moved dried/cured painted lead bricks from painting area to clean room

• Cleaned each brick with a wet wipe before transition into clean room, will be allowed to air dry on steel table

• • 50 bricks total: 49 half bricks and 1 full brick

• Steel table set up finished

6/4/21

• Created initial lead brick tunnel

6/8/21

• Finished collection and analysis of NaI detector plateau measurements, voltages ranging from 700V to 1400V

• • Analysis included Souce in & Source out plots, Signal:Noise, and background subtracted plots

6/9/21

• Began data colleciton for He3 Borated Poly attenuation study

6/11/21

• Finished data collection for He3 Borated Poly attenuation study

• Began writing analysis code for Borated Poly attenuation study

6/21/21

• Spent the day at INL with Chuting and Paul

6/22/21

• Finished writing analysis code for He3 Borated Poly attenuation measurements and submitted plot to Paul

• Began designing cradle for NaI detector using fusion360

6/24/21

• Finished modeling cradle and sent designs to Jeff Burggraf who offered to print it for me

6/25/21

• Began BorAl attenuation measurements including overnight background runs

6/26/21

• First BorAl background run lasted 60000 seconds and ended at approximately 11:45am 6/26/21

• Continuing to run Borated Poly attenuation measurements with BorAl surrounding He3 tube

• Cradle for NaI detector has been printed and should be in lab Tuesday 6/29/21

• Created github repository to advertise my poor coding practices

• Began mapping shielding measurements for Lead, BorAl, and various Poly

6/28/21

• Continued BorAl/Borated Poly attenuation measurements with He3 tube

• Began working with MCNP

• Continued to map out BorAl placement and shielding design for feasibility study
  • We need more BorAl

6/29/21

• Finished BorAl/Borated Poly attenuation measurements

• Got signal from HPGe detector

• Discussed various poly box and shielding arrangements for feasibility study
  • Designs need to be drawn up
  • Lead tunnel needs to be made bigger to accommodate HPGe detector
    • Will probably need to model another cradle for HPGe
  • Need to source more regular poly and cut it to appropriate length and widths

6/30/21

• Sourced regular poly and lead sheets, will be washed and brought to clean room today

• Finalized design of poly box for feasibility study
  • Will have to cut some poly blocks to fit the needed dimensions

• Finished designing poly brick thermalizing box and lead shielding

• Brought poly down to LDS in dark room to be washed

• Tony and Paul were able to get a good signal out of HPGe detector

Unknown time when tasks were completed

• Found a fifth NaI detector (no base) with smaller crystal diameter (5.5cm)

• Helped Tony and Joe moved DD generator from nuke eng department and subsequently lift into clean room

• Moved HPGe detector into clean room and unpacked it, Paul has begun preliminary functionality testing

July

7/1/21

• Installed cradle into lead tunnel

• Discussed solid state physics with Dr. Forest regarding HPGe detector

• Tested various arrangements to show that BorAl is most effective after borated poly and not before down beam axis

• Received new daq from CoSE IT and Dr. Forest did preliminary setup

7/2/21

• Finished and posted BorAl/BPoly/Poly attenuation measurement study

• Redesigned thermalizing box with Paul

• Created and posted BorAl shielded He3 attenuation measurements plot

• Made and posted BorAl/Poly/Bpoly attenuation measurements plot

7/5/21

• Fourth of July (observed)

7/6/21

• Met with CoSE IT about DAQ issues
  • Need to upgrade DAQ to at least CENT OS 7, 8 may be better. Currently running version 6 which is too old for security updates

• Worked with Paul on experimental setup design and marked some BorAl for cutting back at INL

• Modeled experimental setup in fusion 360
  • Need more data from mcnp to finalize shielding designs

• Drew cuts on BorAl for cutting

7/7/21

• Washed regular poly for use in thermalizing cavity in experimental setup

• Received new ADC and Gadolinium sheet from Chuting

• Worked on MCNP and thermalizing box design with Paul

• Gave some BorAl back to chuting to be cut

7/9/21

• Downloaded new MCNP libraries to run Paul's new script

• Spoke to Joe (chemist) about separating boron from BorAl and BPoly

• Started working through python lessons

• Started photon attenuation measurements in lead tunnel

7/12/21

• Updated 3D model of feasibility study with Gadolinium converter and smoothed out some edges that were improperly situated
  • Next step is to model a cradle for He3 detector to be used in tunnel, then redesign for HPGe detector

• Built experimental setup with Paul and attempted to get an energy spectrum through ADC

7/13/21

• Compiled resources related to DAQ systems, specifically readout controller

• Need to find a more reliable scope, may be one in LDS

• Ran NaI through ADC and got energy spectrum. No calibration yet. Will update wiki later in week with fine details
  • Ran source out, source in, source in & Cadmium sheet
    • Noticeable changes in each

7/14/21

• Adjusted thermalizing box design for easier source access
  • Took measurements of all poly needed
  • Preparing to cut poly to rebuild thermalizing box as designed

• Designed cradle for He3 detector use in experimental setup

• Continued python lessons

• Emailed Josh Pak at ISU regarding chemical separations

• Emailed Jack Bradley to get centos 7 disk

• Did trial cuts on poly with Dr. Forest and found a method that gives accurate cuts

7/15/21

• Continued fine tuning 3D design

• Worked on more python lessons

7/16/21

• Cut pieces of poly for thermalizing box

• Built experimental setup

• Discussed a run plan with Paul for next week

• Created run plan for next week

7/19/21

• Rendered images of experimental setup and uploaded to wiki page

• Uploaded pictures taken of experimental setup

• Finalized run plan for NaI and He3

• Executed NaI run plan for preliminary measurements

• Spoke to Roy Dunker about using Cs137, Co60, & Eu152 in clean room

• Paperwork being filed with TSO

7/20/21

• Executed He3 run plan for preliminary measurements

• Met with Jeff Burggraf regarding ADC calibration and fixing NaI bases

• Also spoke about using ADC and possible improvements

7/21/21

• Ran both He3 and NaI with/without converter through ADC to create plots

• Began disassembly of NaI bases to find issue

• Both multimeters used were questionable, need 9V battery and fuses

• Created plots of NaI and He3 measurements of past two days

• Managed to copy files off of daq2 and onto minerve, cannot currently copy from minerve to local machine, had to rely on thumbstick

• Cannot access root files easily without manual transfer before leaving ISU - will speak to CoSE IT about SCP issue

• Have access to the source certificate for Cf252 source through Jeff Burggraf

7/22/21

• Analyzed NaI and He3 energy spectrum data from ADC with Gd converter in/out

• Presented data taken in experimental setup to INL collaborators

• Discovered previously unknown artifact affecting data analysis on DAQ computer using various techniques including moving files to another machine for analysis and adjusting run parameters to give a known output. None were repeatable.

7/23/21

• Continued to debug the DAQ system, most likely culprit is a bad RAM stick

7/26/21

• Spoke with Tony regarding upgrading to new DAQ

• Spoke with CoSE IT regarding upgrading to new DAQ

• Started process of upgrading to new DAQ

• First task is to get centos 7 up and running on a separate drive if possible. Currently the system cannot see the second disk through bios or centos 7 installer

• See here: DAQ2 Upgrade Summer 2021

7/27/21

• Continued updating new DAQ

• Mounted 1TB disk as storage for centos 7 under directory Data

7/28/21

• Continued updating new DAQ, still

• See here: DAQ2 Upgrade Summer 2021

7/29/21

• Continued updating new DAQ, even more

• Planned rest of summer work with Paul regarding feasibility study

August

8/3/21

• New DAQ has hit a wall with library issues not allowing evio2nt to parse dat files and create root files

• Attempting solve issue on local machine instead of ISU property

• Copied daq2 to minerve then to local machine

• Ran power to work bench

• Brought 3D printer to lab

• HVAC updated research team, no AC in foreseeable future for clean room, so we get to continue to sweat

• John Longley has given interim permission for sources to be used to calibrate HPGe in clean room

• Attempted to build ROOT onto a new DAQ1 machine in hopes to skirt around issues with DAQ2

8/4/21

• ROOT built successfully on Daq1

• DAQ1 & DAQ2 can now analyze data

• DAQ2 can also collect data

8/24/21

• After a hiatus due to IT issues and a presentation, the HPGe detector is in the experimental setup

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