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The LIGO Executive Committee Agenda for Monday May 29, 2000 will be:
CANCELED DUE TO HOLIDAY
No report this week.
PROPERTY MANAGEMENT (Chargois)
From: Ed Chargois <chargois_e@ligo.caltech.edu>
Assisted the Detector Group (H. Armandula) with arranging the shipping of four (4) SPETM (End Test Mirrors) Serial Numbers SPETM 0, SPETM 02, SPETM 04, AND SPETM 08 to General Optics (Ken Scribner) delivery confirmed. Account Number LIGO.5F500 2.4 NSFLIGO.5F5000
Assisted the Detector Group (M. Smith) with the packing and shipping of ELLIPTICAL BAFFLE ASSY to the LIGO Hanford Observatory (B. Weaver). Account Number 5F515.
Assisted the Detector Group (M.Smith) with the packing and shipping of ELLIPTICAL BAFFLE ASSY to the LIGO Livingston Observatory (J. Kern) . Account Number 5F515.
Received authorization from the National Science Foundation granting permission to Molding Solution for the disposal of the following Molds a no cost to LIGO Part Numbers D972714, D972219,D972220, D990020, and LG351B.
Process a Property Transfer Order through the National Science Foundation for a Truck, Platform valued at $23,955 for the LIGO Livingston Observatory this property was acquires from Edwards Air Force Base, transportation arrangements for the delivery of this vehicle is in progress.
DOCUMENT CONTROL
CENTER (Turner, Mak)
| Packages | Faxes | |
| In | 37 | 40 |
| Out | 11 | 51 |
special projects/notable activities: electronic doc activity not as high as the last couple of weeks but still a considerable amount of documents were processed
Press here to access the DOCUMENT CONTROL CENTER WEB PAGE.
COST SCHEDULE CONTROL SYSTEMS (Cunningham, Brambila, Akutagawa, Kaufman)
From: Esther Cunningham <esther@ligo.caltech.edu>
Press here for ACCOUNTS
PAYABLE HISTORY DATA.
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From: "Brambila, Ruth" <Ruth.Brambila@caltech.edu>
Closed converted po's and removed encumbrances totalling $63,670.62 this week. I still have a spreadsheet of po's to be closed, and encumbrances on contracts to be removed. On some of the converted po's which have had payments in Oracle, I am working with Kimi and Dorothy with the purpose of getting Oracle to release the remaining encumbrance by closing the po "automatically", rather than cancelling the line.
I was notified yesterday that we are being audited by DCAA, and received a request to provide a detailed spreadsheet of all LIGO's subcontracts which will be time consuming. I will begin compiling the data on the spreadsheet, however, I would like to have it reviewed by LIGO before submitting the final version.
Am waiting for poeta LIGO.50498 to be extended so that I can finish up Northwestern Univ and the correction on Syracuse Univ. (which has invoices pending). Understand that NSF has approved the funds, however, the funds have not yet been received by Sponsored Research, therefore, the poeta shows an end date of Jan 31,2000.
Am working on Triad, Promec, Richard Price, John Desmond, and Butler. Yesterday, I did my first workorder to JPL.
From: Florence Kaufman <fkaufman@ligo.caltech.edu>
For a listing of the FY 2000 POETA Accounts see
http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/docuserv/home/accts_ops.pdf
http://docuserv.ligo.caltech.edu/docuserv/home/accts_adv.pdf
I continue to reviewed the open encumbrances on the Construction and Advanced R&D accounts to see if the requested removals have been made. I will continue to review these accounts weekly until all encumbrances have been removed. It appears that the job is getting done.
SUBCONTRACTS MANAGEMENT (Petrac, Jasnow)
Support (Wood)
Dorothy Lloyd
Continue to review "old" open purchase orders. This week submitted 18 to Acquisitions (Ruth) to "close out" and remove the encumbrance. Adjusted LIGO database accordingly.
Processed requisitions, invoices and receiving on-line. For more detail see "Cost Schedule Control Systems" report by Esther Cunningham.
Tracked and followed up on invoice problems.
Monitored contract and blanket order funding levels and notified task managers when supplements needed to be made.
Jim continues to maintain files and do data entry.
Reviewed payments processed by Esther for the period of May 1 through 19. Payments were entered in contract summary sheets and the LIGO database.
Irene Baldon
Worked on preparing the paper work for 29 new trips taken recently or upcoming (29 Payment Requests and 14 Advance Requests). There are approximately an additional 8 new trips in various stages pending completion of travel arrangements before the paper work can be completed. Also, there are 2 trips that require extensive attention due to various problems incurred and a number of travelers coming either to Caltech or one of the two sites on our Visitor Program.
I have started the travel arrangements needed for 23 incoming SURF students, some of which will be coming from Europe. We have 14 students coming to LIGO/Caltech, 3 will be going to LIGO/Hanford, and 6 will go to LIGO/Livingston. I have ticketed some of them and will continue to push the others so that I can get the best possible fares. We have 1 student coming from Warsaw and this is becoming somewhat of a problem, requiring an additional Visa so that he can layover in Zurich for 1 night.
Completed 31 Expense Reports, some of which were extensive, involving 2-3 or more pages each. There are 21 Expense Reports still to be done. I’m holding 3 completed Expense Reports which require a check from the Traveler before sending to Travel Audit to clear.
Rita continues to try to fit into her schedule some time for travel. She has 6 Expense Reports to be done at the present time and has completed 5 Expense Reports this past week.
Gary Sanders, Ed Jasnow and I will be attending a meeting on the use of P-Cards for Travel on Thursday, May 25th. We will meet with Caltech’s new Controller, Al Horvath, Wayne Morales, Supervisor of Travel Audit, Michelle Thompson, Manager of Accounts Payable, and Criselda Rodriquez-Brodeur, P-Card Administrator. Gary, Ed and I hope to justify our case for P-Card use for Travel and will push for LIGO to be their Case Study. Gathered information on LIGO’s 1999 and 2000 airfare, total expense and number of trips, both by year and by month for Gary’s use in our justification.
Prepared the Travel/Vacation Itinerary for the Week of May 22, 2000. Performed normal recording and filing associated with Travel and Reimbursement. Also performed miscellaneous duties as requested by various members of the LIGO Project here at Caltech, as well as from members of the staffs of each of the two (2) sites. I continue to do MIT’s travel to the sites for installation activities and also to assist them wherever possible.
Rita Torres
Letters to Syracuse, Penn State, Moscow State, and University of FL to transmit assorted Attachments. Formatted from email the 8-page progress report from Stanford University, did subsequent edits. Formatted progress reports from Cornell, Moscow State, and Wisconsin-Milwaukee also from email. Scanned 20 signed documents to be posted on the web page for LSC/MOUs. Sent a 10-page fax to University of Adelaide, the same info was sent via mail in April. Prepared for close out file for Pegasus Manufacturing.
Obtained Oracle requisition number for po with Velmex. Spent time on travel documents. Site trip updates. P-card activities, the usual chase for invoices, also some reconciling. Spent some time comparing prices of toner cartridges (color too) for the new printer on the 3rd floor, Office Max appears to have the best price to date. Awaiting quotes from High Performance.
Elizabeth K. Wood
Submitted the LIGO Annual Report in FastLane.
Did lots of personnel reqs.
Please note that next week, Wednesday through Friday, I will be participating in the Kipfest preparation and activities. The Kipfest Scientific Seminars will be in Ramo Auditorium with registration starting at 8:00 a.m. and talks beginning at 9:00 a.m.
Progress Period from 5.19 to 5.25
Accomplishments:
WBS 1.4.1.2 Project Controls (LIGO Construction)
COST SCHEDULE CONTROL SYSTEMS (Duncan, Akutagawa)
From: Kris Duncan <kris@ligo.caltech.edu>
SUBCONTRACTS MANAGEMENT (Petrac, Jasnow)
A change order was issued to John Desmond Associates in the amount of $43,000 for increased scope in the design of the new Livingston Staging
Building:
A change order in the amount of $58,578 was issued to Richard Price Construction for additional work on the Livingston site, plus the building of a housing for a seismometer.
OPERATIONS:
A meeting is being held on Thursday, May 25, to discuss the use of the P-card for travel. In attendance at this meeting will be the new controller, Al Horvath.
No report this week.
Announcements:
--------------
(F. Raab)
We will pump down this week.
Optics:
---------------------
(D. Cook)
The COC, COS and IOO installations and alignments are winding up as
far as
the in vacuum work goes. The last of the doors are being placed today.
I
will be resetting the optical levers to zero, reducing the power output
on
the laser diodes and calibrating the sensitivity next week.
LHO Laser Safety Procedures will be undergoing some changes to involve
the Control Room Operators. This was put into practice during this
last big
invasion of installation and alignment tasks which involved the use
of
several lasers simultaneously. By continuously communicating the laser
safety status of each system through the Control Room, we were able
to
better coordinate the separate tasks, keeping everyone aware of the
current
conditions. The Control Room acted as the clearing house to keep track
of
when the dedicated beam dumps or shutters were to be in place, or when
laser powers came up or down etc. This information is relayed to task
leaders or was being monitored by all through hand held FM radio
broadcasting. It helped to reinforce the overall laser safety awareness
by
being public. (GHS note: This role for the
Control Room is an essential step in building a safe LIGO)
Commissioning: We measured the length of the mode cleaner and found
it was about 3.2 mm less than the specified length (12.24 mm). We have
calibrated the VCO input to the laser frequency shift AOM and are now preparing
to measure the PSL frequency noise using the mode cleaner as
an analyzer cavity. We continued work on understanding the excess beam
jitter in the mode cleaner output. We measured more transfer functions
between the ground (using both seismic noise and a shaker driven signal)
to look at the coupling between ground motion and mirror motion.
Ligo-Trinet Seismic Monitoring Stations: LLO station final design is released to the contractor and the seismic contract is being attached to their previous contract.
GDS: We extensively tested the current release of the Diagnostic Test
Tool and excitation engine during this week's comissioning tasks. Excellent
tool! (Szabi Marka)
Acoustic Background Noise: We measured acoustic background noise in PSL room and its effect on laser stability. It seems that cooling fans contribute the most to the noise and the acoustic effect is visible on the beam. More study is neccessary to characterize the sources and decide on the course of action.
For better mode matching to MC, we adjusted the mode matching lenses on the PSL table by measuring the spot size of the PSL beam at various points on the PSL table including the effective waist location (i.e., at the same distance from the periscope as the MC waist). We made this measurement at a PSL power of 40 mW into the EOMs. At this power, my calculation indicates that the spot size at the MC waist is 1.54 mm. When the mode matching lenses were placed at the following locations, the measured spot size at the effective waist was 1.58 +/- 0.002 mm (horizontal) and 1.50 +/- 0.004 mm (vertical): mml1=116.5" from EOM waist, mml2=16" from mml1, and mml3=19" from mml2. With the lenses at these locations, the visibility has been measured to be 96.6%. (Sany Yoshida)
OPTICS: The suspension and balancing of the 4 core optics which will
be installed in the vertex next month is completed. Resonant modes of each,
as well as their violin string mode has been completed. Our new small bake
oven is back from the welding shop, and is being built-up this week. COS
component vacuum bakes are proceeding rapidly; we have 2 more loads to
run through the large oven and will then have completed all that we have
received. (Jonathan Kern)
All issues covered elsewhere.
All issues covered elsewhere.
| Installation
& Commissioning:
Livingston |
Other
Science/Engineering
Activities |
See also the Installation web page (N.B. A revised summary level schedule resulting from the recent NSF review has been posted).
Bill Kells
Installed and aligned relay
optics for future temporary optical levers on MC3, MC2 and MMT2 for use
in diagonalizing the suspension controllers.
Completed realignment of mode cleaner and mode-matching telescope. CO2 cleaned mode cleaner optics, and discovered that somehow the mode cleaner had become misaligned.
Began re-realignment of mode cleaner and mode matching telescope, but because of the change in polarization and the closing of HAM7 east door, it seemed impossible to get adequate visibility. So we decided to take a break, and are sure that everything will be easy tomorrow.
A redesign of the IOO beam path on the PSL table is underway; many kinematic mounts have been eliminated in the new design and a new polarization insensitive RFAM pick-off has been designed.
The Rev. C. FSS is now as robust as Rev. A. During testing in the PSL Lab when the beam to the reference cavity was blocked and unblocked the servo always recovered for typical operating values of the common and fast gains. If both gains were pushed significantly higher (~10 dB) than normal the servo would oscillate when light was restored. If either the common or fast gain were set too high (each by ~10 dB) then the servo would recover after a few seconds. Further testing of the frequency servo is underway.
The 10-W laser power supply for the PSL blew a fuse on the morning of 05/20. An autopsy did not reveal any obvious reasons why this occurred. No damage to the power supply was evident, apart from a partially molten fuse holder. The 10-A fuse was replaced and the power supply has survived a 24-hour burn-in test. The power supply was then used to power up laser #107a. Approximately 1 hour after starting the laser, the power supply complained that it required cycling the power and checking the chiller status, messages not seen before. Given that there was no RS-232 connection to the power supply from the chiller (normally there is). Attaching the RS-232 cables had no effect. For the second time in 72 hours the same laser power supply blew a 10-A fuse. The laser power supply will be sent back to Lightwave Electronics once a RMA number is obtained.
Olivier D'Arcy (a summer student at MIT) has been working on the development of a graphical user interface for the DMT monitor for transients identification and cataloguing that I wrote. The first release of the complete software package should be available by mid-June.
Kendall McConnel and Miriam Lara Castellano (both MIT students working on Ligo over the summer) joined the effort to go through the E1 data to identify transients of environmental origin, and to store the results in an organized way in a SQL database.
APS/PO Telescope: Some missing hardware parts were ordered and are expected at CIT on 5/25. Helena A. will clean all the hardware; shipment to LLO is expected on 5/26. The APS beam dump parts will be ordered on 5/25; delivery is expected on 6/5. LHO will ship a class A substitute PO telescope primary (Ag) mirror to LLO (the mirror will be recoated and replaced by CIT).
APS/PO Telescope Optical Train: LHO will ship a substitute class A set of periscope parts to LLO (the parts will be replaced by CIT).
Elliptical Baffle: The elliptical baffle mechanical parts were shipped to LLO on 5/24
David Reitze, Sany Yoshida
Tooling, spare MC mirrors,
and two SOS towers have been sent to LLO for replacement of the imbalanced
MC1,2. The MC controllers will be modified to have increased pitch
and yaw dynamic range.
As with the LHO 2k, a redesign of the IOO beam path on the PSL table is underway; many kinematic mounts have been eliminated in the new design and a new polarization insensitive RFAM pick-off has been designed.
HAM1 stack measurements: In tracking down the source of the large beam pointing fluctuations at the MC output around 1 Hz, we investigated the effect of the HAM stack; We did not find any suspicious resonance at 1 Hz.
We adjusted the mode matching lenses on the PSL/IOO table, and were able to achieve visibility of 96.6%.
Mode Cleaner Length Measurement: We also measured the mode cleaner length, with a precision of better than 1 ppm. This precision is enough to show drifts in length, and changes in length upon unlocking and relocking. We measured the mode cleaner length by applying a modulation to the input light near 24.5 MHz and then measuring how much of this sideband was reflected from the mode cleaner. The resonant frequency measured by this method is then 24499202Hz. We also measured the frequency at which the RF sidebands are resonant in mode cleaner by minimizing the PDH discriminant derived by modulating the EOM and demodulating a sample of the reflected light. The resonant frequency measured by this method is then 24499203Hz. The resulting resonant sideband frequency of 24499202 +/- 2 Hz, corresponds to a mode cleaner length of 12.2368 m compared to the required 12.240 m (i.e. MC is 3.2 mm too short).
A calibrated measurement of the PSL's frequency noise is now in progress.
DAQ channel crosstalk: We
also made a careful measurement of the electrical cross-talk between DAQ
channels. This became important because we had been measuring signals of
very different levels in adjacent channels. The cross-talk turns out to
be within spec, but reminds us that proper pre-whitening practice is important.
We measured the crosstalk between the channels of DAQIC-1/2 chasis. The
crosstalk ranges from ~-97dB for the first neighbors to ~-110dB for
the far ones in DAQIC-2
chasis and it is ~-140dB for channels connected to the neighboring DAQIC-1
chasis.
We found the explanation
for our problems with the EO shutters: a pin in the connector on the HV
cable we were using was improperly installed. This has now been
repaired, and the problem
has gone away.
Acoustic Background Noise:
We measured acoustic background noise in PSL room and its effect on laser
stability. It seems that cooling fans contribute the most to the
noise and the acoustic effect
is visible on the beam. More study is necessary to characterize the sources
and decide on the course of action.
Coil Driver Calibration for MC1: We measured the MC1 mirror's response to periodic excitations. We got ~1.2 um/V for 0.2Hz and ,as expected ~25x less, ~0.05 um/V for 5Hz. The side OSEM show about 50% of the amplitude of the face sensors, which is probably due to cross coupling caused by the PEM magnets.
We are making good progress
on accomplishing the tasks necessary before the vent. We should have no
trouble accomplishing all of the discrete tasks, and should have
time to return to the beam
jitter investigation in the next week.
Jay Heefner
Jay Heefner
The layouts for the Universal
Dewhitening filter and the Anti-Image boards (both used in the digital
suspension) have been completed.
Alan is away this week.
This week we vented and opened the vacuum chamber and installed an
auxiliary He-Ne laser for aligning the mode cleaner. We have
released the
earthquake stops and begun alignment of the suspended cavity.
We also successfully completed and tested our lock-acquisition filter.
Vacuum/infrastructure:
Still doing vacuum tests. One annulus ion pump was found tripped at
high current; it was isolated, repumped with a turbo and successfully
restarted, so it is not clear why this happened.
Interferometer design:
The LIGO II planning meeting last week evoked
some strategic rethinking
of the LASTI mission. Reassessing the technical
risks as we now
percieve them, considering the serious limitations
due to small beam
size in campus machines, and taking into account
revisions to the
proposed LIGO II upgrade strategy, we all felt
the previous plan to
build a high displacement-sensitivity interferometer
had missed the
point. We're now considering a relatively
modest
displacement-sensitivity test of the new SEI
and SUS subystems in
combination with a LIGO II PSL/mode cleaner functional
test and
characterization. We plan to flesh out these
ideas for discussion with
our Advisory Panel in the near future.
Luca and Matt worked on angular degrees of freedom in
lock acquisition model but faced some technical difficulties.
Biplab is trying to solve those. He is also writing draft for
E2E paper.
____________________________________________________
The bulk of the software effort went into fixing problems associated
with
extending the Tcl language with threaded functions. At this time the
only
threaded functions being tested are associated with the ilwd data sockets
used to send ilwd data between APIs. The group has been partially success-
ful in getting this to work intermittently (it didn't work at all about
ten
days ago), but the send/receive hangs still on occasion. There are
known
bugs in the gcc 2.95.2 compiler we are using with regard to threads.
This
was discovered in the frameCPP a couple of weeks ago, but it was also
discovered last week that a thread-safe thread switch in the compiler
was
not used and it was hoped that enabling this switch would be sufficient
for our use. However it didn't fix the problem and we are preparing
to
test the threaded code using the beta version of gcc 2.96 that Alex
has
identified as necessary to resolve the thread issue he found in using
the
frameCPP in the framebuilder. Hopefully this will resolve our problems
until the next release of gcc.
There is still a memory leak problem with the frameAPI and a significant
amount of effort went into chasing this bug. It appears that the Tcl
event
loop ( registered with the after command) is somehow conflicting with
a
request to free memory used to store frame data. This leak doesn't
occur
if the memory freeing occurs outside the event loop. However, it is
very
important for us to use the event loop to prevent the frameAPI from
dead-
locking until a request is finished. More information is needed to
be able
to determine how complex the fix will be. However, we are planning
to make
a change to the ilwd attributes to include jobid which may give use
the
needed hook into the memory leak to be able to clean it up.
Sun has provided LDAS with a T300 raid 5 disk array which we have installed
on our CIT LDAS dataserver and tested the performance of data ingesting
into
the database. We are seeing almost the same performance using this
technology
as we see using the original 450E hard disks. This is reassuring since
the
use of raid 5 traditionally slows down disk performance as a trade
to using
fewer disks to have redundancy of data. At this point the T300 looks
very
attractive as a disk storage technology for LDAS.
The mpi/wrapper effort focused on enhancing the documentation to reflect
the current LAL function prototypes to appear in the shared objects.
There
are a few minor changes that are needed associated with the use of
signals
in the LAL code which may overload (in a nondesirable way) the MPI
code
behavior. The C++ MPI code has now been tested and found to be working
in
the areas of parallel data communications to and from the slaves and
all
error handling between the master and slaves is now working, though
much
more complex than originally implemented. The C++ effort will now focus
on the parallel flow control and socket communications between the
mpiAPI
and the master process in the wrapperAPI. The dynamically loaded test
library being developed at UWM is nearing completion and most of the
UWM
group will be here at CIT next week to begin a month long effort to
finalize
the test program for the wrapperAPI.
As a last note, Peter's GUILD userAPI is now integrated into the LDAS
CVS
repository and build process. He is expecting to make a public release
of
the software to the community in the near future. To assure that the
public
receives GUILD with a positive acceptance, we will need to increase
the
overall reliability of the LDAS software system running at the sites.
This
is the targeted performance of the LDAS 0.0.11 release in which we
would
like to have these memory leaks, threads and configuration issues resolved.
Anderson:
Finished working on the LDAS procurement plan.
Installed and began testing loaner Sun E450 and hardware RAID system (T300).
Installed and began testing 3 loaner fast/gigabit Ethernet switches
from Foundry Networks.
The recuring crashes of the LHO LDAS gateway machine have been solved.
Lazzarini:
The revised procurement plan is almost complete. It has been circulated
for review
and I hope to post it for access by NSF before the end of the weekend.
I am traveling to NSF on 31 May to attend a meeting to discuss funding
for the hardware component of the GriPhyN proposal. I will represernt
LIGO Lab.
Livingston:
Minor problem with a LINUX machine that was hacked into. The unit is
being
rebuilt.
Hanford:
ATM network is being extended to the new staging building. ATM
hardware
and software is being upgraded for all site networks.
CIT:
Just a reminder that everyone should be alert on opening their e-mail
and to
watch out for viruses.
Caltech has a number of software pkgs. that can be downloaded and used
for free
or at a minimal charge. These pkgs. include Norton's anti-virus program.
You may
want to check their web site for other pkgs. such as Autocad, Mathematica,
Maple
and others.
Check http://www.its.caltech.edu/its/services/sitelicensing
for more information.
Preparing for the summer influx of people , visitors and SURF students.
It looks
like we will be a couple of weeks behind schedule for the equipment
installations, at this time.
Last week we held a meeting at MIT to reexamine the LIGO II concept
that is outlined in the September 1999 white paper. We had fruitful
discussions about the upgrade schedule and scenario, the interferometer
design, and the role of prototype testing. A memo summarizing the
meeting and recommending how to proceed will be distributed soon.
(GHS note: Watch the LIGO II website for a page
containing the documentation from this meeting)
From: Riccardo DeSalvo <desalvo@ligo.caltech.edu>
Removal to upper section of Synchrotron still pending while waiting
for
the space to move in to be cleared. We will not move until after
the
TAMA prrototype validation but will use the space as soon as available
and will have to move the LIGO IP tower to make space for Minos.
Alessandro, Elio (G&M)
Test assembly of the TAMA tower in Lucca, shipping on the 24th.
E.t.a.
in Pasadena on the 30th, (the 29th is Memorial day, it is vacation).
Alessandro, Francesconi
Making some LVDTs. Improving capacitive position readout.
Alessandro, Riccardo
Started construction of Accelerometer mark 2.
Hareem, Soy
Measurement of hysteresis on old GASF (with wedge clamps and not with
bolted clamps). Found only temperature effects but no hysteresis
within
errors. Working on improved resolution. Wedge clamps look
good.
Virginio
Presenting SAS at the Elba conference
Akiteru
Getting ready to engineer TAMA suspensions.
Akiteru, Hareem.
Finally measuring Accelerometer mark 1 on IP.
Riccardo
Getting conterweights for Creep measurements and Lisa.
Getting infrastructure ready for TAMA prototype measurements
Riccardo Hareem
Improved display of oil bearing vitals.
G&M, PROMEC
Expo with SAS components at the industrial section of Elba conference.
Programme for next week.
We need to validate the TAMA tower prototype within two weeks in order
to allow G&M to produce the two towers for the 3 meter test before
August.
G&M is already purchasing the raw materials for the entire production,
so this, this time, should not introduce delays.
Test programme.
Weight components at arrival and determine center of weights of all
components (IP and Filters) for later use in MSE.
Measure all internal resonances of IP legs and Filter cases.
Assemble the IP tower over the oil bearings (with F0, without blades
and
supported load).
IP counterweight tuning.
Measure Horizontal IP transfer function.
Assemble F1 with 2 mm blades and F1-bis with 1.5 mm blades.
Suspend F1 from Garage door springs and measure vertical TF.
Support F1-bis on stand in thermal box and measure Frequency versus
position and weight, measure thermal properties, check out hysteresis.
The programme is heavy but Virginio and Szabi will be back in Pasadena
and we will have substantial help from our Japanese collaborators
arriving during the week.
Stiff isolation system (S. Richman, S. Chatterji)
Shourov is building a set of current drivers for the voice coil actuators,
to replace those we borrowed from JILA. Sam is working on comparing
the
dynamical model with the prototype performance. In quiet moments,
we have
been gathering broadband transfer function data from actuators to the
various sensors, with an eye toward designing a MIMO controller.
From: Phil Willems <willems@ligo.caltech.edu>
Fused silica fibers/ribbons:
----------------------------
We are improving our recipe for pulling ribbons. Right now uniformity
is the
issue. Measurements show low strength relative to fibers but
the work is still
ongoing. (John Johnson, Phil Willems)
Silicate bonding:
-----------------
We have made a set of silica/silica bonds at Caltech using the same
substrates
used for the set made at Stanford earlier this year. We will
strength-test them
in a few weeks. Meanwhile, we are investigating the nature and
causes of the
crystallization that sometimes appears in the bonds. Fortunately,
the degree of
crystallization appears not to correlate with bond strength.
We are also
preparing fixtures to apply stress to newly-made bonds as they cure,
to evaluate
whether the fifty day curing time is really necessary. (Helena Armandula,
Phil
Willems)
From: Helena Armandula <ahelena@ligo.caltech.edu>
Placed an order to coat 2 fused silica and 2 sapphire substrates with
MLD
Technologies. Delivery will be around 8 weeks or better.
Visited G.O; they are interested in producing coatings for us.
Characterization is an issue at this time, (do not have a laser at
1064nm)
but they are willing to acquire one. For COC coatings their system
needs to
be up-graded and their clean room policies, need to be improved also.
As
soon as we receive a quote from them, we'll send substrates to get
coated
for evaluation.
For additional information about this report, contact sanders@ligo.caltech.edu