J.F. Amsbaugh, D.T. Corcoran, G.C. Harper, M.A. Howe, D.W. Storm, D.I. Will and J.A. Wootress
During the period March 1, 1995 to February 29, 1996, the booster was operated for 69 days. This is a decrease from the last two years, but is the same as the average annual operation for the five year period ending February 28, 1994.
Beams ranged in mass from 11B to 60Ni, and included 12C, 16,18O, and 40Ca, as well. This year the most popular beam was 12C.
During the entire period there have been three resonators which were inoperable, for a variety of reasons that require opening the cryostats to repair. As the desired energies were available without these resonators, we did not repair them.
We continue to operate the low beta resonators at an average field of 3.0 MV/m and the high beta ones at average of 2.4 MV/m.
A substantial improvement in operation resulted from the new high-energy buncher, which is described in a subsequent section of this report.
The Leybold-Hereaus turbomolecular pumps with greased ceramic bearings provided reliable service, without any failures. They are a substantial improvement over the pumps with greased steel bearing that we had originally.
The helium compressors continued to run with no failures this year. Our oldest compressor now has run for 80k hours, and the other two have run for 50k hours in one case and 21k hours in the other case.