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Reports until 16:57, Friday 06 June 2025
LHO VE
janos.csizmazia@LIGO.ORG - posted 16:57, Friday 06 June 2025 - last comment - 01:36, Monday 09 June 2025(84875)
HAM1 reventing and VAC troubleshooting
Gerardo, Travis, Randy, Janos

Today we executed WP 12595, reventing, troubleshooting, closing, and re-pumping HAM1. The times of the operations are approximate.

08:00 - 08:30: GV1 and GV2 large gate valves have been closed. HAM1 turbo and Ion pump (IP13) have been valved out. The annulus IPs have been switched off, the annulus volume has been vented. Also, IP3 was valved in to the corner, after the successful troubleshooting yesterday (see aLog 84826).
08:40 - 09:53: The chamber was vented with bottled Nitrogen. Approximately 2 full bottles were needed. Only metallic parts were used between the venting port and the bottle (no plastic tubes), and the tube was flushed with Nitrogen beforehand.
10:00 - 10:40: The Y+ door has been taken off. The O-rings have been inspected, then removed. A human hair was found at 6:30 o'clock, and a little piece of white tape was found in the O-ring's groove at 8:00 o'clock, and overall, the O-rings and grooves were substantially dirty. Pictures about these in the comments. Also, the cleanroom was needed to be moved Y+ direction, to give enough room for the forklift.
10:40 - 11:40: Chamber work. During this time, Randy stayed with the forklift, so the door was hanging from it all the time, and inside the cleanroom.
11:45 - 13:30: O-ring installation: it took a few tries, but both O-rings were installed nicely. Then, installing back the door: smooth process, with shoving it in as the last step, to avoid the O-rings falling out.
13:20 - 13:50: Pumping of the annulus systems, and roughing the chamber. The HAM1 side annulus needed ~10 mins to go below the pressure it reached in the last 2 weeks, so the troubleshooting was very successful! The roughdown goes well, too.
16:15 - 16:45: Transitioning to turbo
Comments related to this report
janos.csizmazia@LIGO.ORG - 17:00, Friday 06 June 2025 (84876)
Because of the safety concerns of the high amount of Nitrogen in the chamber after venting, and then opening the door, Oxygen sensors have been used during the door opening process.
Moreover, because of these same reasons, and because of the lack of purge air, a crossflow from a HEPA-filtered fan was also used (additionally to the cleanroom's HEPA fans), when the chamber was open.
travis.sadecki@LIGO.ORG - 17:51, Friday 06 June 2025 (84879)
Images attached to this comment
gerardo.moreno@LIGO.ORG - 01:35, Saturday 07 June 2025 (84882)VE

Left HAM1 with SS500 cart pumping, it was able to reach 5.0X10-05 Torr, at such pressure the cart system will allow the interlock to be engaged, this interlock is there to protect the chamber in case of an anomaly (power interruption, component failure, etc.) and its function is to close two valves on the cart.  HAM1 pressure when I left the site was a bit higher than the cart, 6.1X10-05 Torr.  Pumpdown appears nominal.

The annulus for HAM1 and HAM2 are doing good.  HAM1 was at 2.66x10-05 Torr, and the pressure on HAM2 annulus was at 7.57x10-06 Torr.

Images attached to this comment
gerardo.moreno@LIGO.ORG - 01:36, Monday 09 June 2025 (84891)VE

Plot comparing the current vs the previous pumpdown.  Blue trace is the current pumpdown.

Images attached to this comment
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