IB2  Endcap Muon Chamber Meeting
Below are the minutes for the Endcap Muon Chamber Meeting. If you find errors or wish to correct them, please contact me at apollina@fnal.gov.
 
Agenda
N.Chester-Z.John                             Status of Procurements (emphasis on panels)
G. Apollinari                                     Status of P2'-P3 - Plans for FY99
S.Medved (?)                                   3rd Panel Tension Measurement
G.Smith-E.Borissov-B.Koecher        Status of Tooling for P3

Procurement of Panels and Parts for P3
The 14 panels on order to Plascore will be manufactured on November 4th. N.Chester and R.Evans will participate at Plascore.
The order for the carts part (RTV sealing cart) has been placed, as well as the order for the P3 combs and the Panel supports. The Cosmic ray stand parts are starting to get in, and the plan is to ship the UF parts at the beginning of November.
Victor discussed the issue about the PNPI visitors for the P3 assembly. He will send a letter of invitations, asking them to arrive by the 15th of November.

Status of P2' and P3
Both chambers are on schedule. P2' is getting all the components hand-soldered. P3 is being machined in Lab 8. Yhe Plans is to finish P2' by the beginning of November, test is at the Cosmic Stand until January and then send it to UCLA. P3 will start being assembled in MP9 at the beginning of November.

RTV Outgassing
Giorgio presented a measurement lately performed by Laura Vanoli. Laura measured outgassing of a piece of dried RTV, observing a peak at 73 atomic masses. Such a peak has never been obesrved before, and she made sure it was not due to backgroud. Jay Hoffmann contacted the RTV vendor and determined that for the particular RTV we are using (RTV 9811) the basic molecular structure of the polymer is:

    CH3      CH3
    |             |
... Si - O - Si - O ...
    |             |
    CH3      CH3

where the unit 2(CH3)Si O has an atomic weight of 74, i.e. awfully close to the 73 that Laura is observing. It looks like there could be a chance for silicon to be inside the gas volume. Andrey commented that in the absence of radiation this may not be a problem, and the RTV may stop outgassing as it ages. The test on the Aging Chambers should illuminate the issue.
 

Tension Measurements on  Third P2' Panel
Sergei presented the data from the last panels winded for P2'. The panel bowing was much more severe this time, preventing a good measurement on one of the 2 sides. He had to adjust the head position, and when he can measure the tension, he determined average tensions in agreemnt with what found before (~250 +/- 3 grams).

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