R&D (Cryogenic)
YoichiAso - 16:20, Tuesday 31 March 2015 (60)
Cryostat installation and vacuum test

(Sorry for the late entry)

The cryostat was installed at the ATC on Mar. 26th (Thu).You can see the photos here:

https://plus.google.com/photos/109781788810342978185/albums/6132294088114700289?authkey=CO3u2ojLpILyxgE

The cryostat was just put in place, but no test was performed at this time because they want to bring it back in a few weeks. Here is the reason. At their factory, the company performed a cooling test, but they could not cool the sample stage as quickly as they thought. There must be something wrong with the system, but they did not have time to track down the issue. Therefore, they delivered the sytem once to the NAOJ. But they need to bring the system back to their factory to fix the problem.

In any case, the cryostat will be in the ATC at least for a few weeks from now. So we can use it as just a vacuum chamber. We are planning to perform a rough leak test of the geophone canisters using this "vacuum chamber".

Today, I connected the vacuum pumps and wired up them. Now the pumps (scroll + turbo) are running. At the time I left the lab., the vacuum level was about 1e-1 Pa. I plan to leave the pump running for a while. The photos of today's vacuum work can be found here:

https://plus.google.com/photos/109781788810342978185/albums/6132294231854400513?authkey=CMqu3YytzfyGlAE