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Damages at PF by the East-Japan Earthquake and its recovery update
On this page, we briefly report the present situation of the Photon Factory.
KEK Web pages of the eathquake infomation
http://www.kek.jp/quake/en/index.html
Announcements (archive)
July 29th July 21st June 29th June 14th May 18th May 13th May 9th April 28th April 20th April 12th April 4th March 31st March 28th March 24th March 23rd Marth 16th
September 28th, 2011
[ALS News Vol. 324]
ALS hosts Photon Factory Users
[NSRRC News Brief]
An Appreciation Party from KEK Users of Japan
[SLAC Feature Story]
SLAC Welcomes Displaced Japanese Scientists
[Operation Schedule]
Operation Schedule (2011 Sep. - 2012 Mar.) has been fixed.
As a direct cause of the devastating earthquakes that hit the eastern part of Japan on March 11th, we could not help cancelling the user operation between May and July. However, thanks to the great supports from SR facilities all around the world, many of the scheduled experiments by the PF users were made possible at other facilities. KEK puts the first priority on the recovery of the Photon Factory and the test operation has started both at the 2.5GeV PF ring and at the 6.5GeV PF-AR.
At the PF ring, the test operation of the beamlines started on May 23rd. After safety inspection, the commissioning and evaluation of the beamlines were carried out. At some beamlines, we asked users to test if the beamlines work well as before. Test operation of the beamlines in PF-AR started on June 6th and has progressed similarly. The test operation is scheduled to continue until the morning of July 7th. Realignment of the storage rings will be done and remaining non-optimized equipments will be conditioned during the planned summer shutdown. We make the best effort to restart the user operation after the summer shutdown if we can use electric power.
Tentative recovery of the downstream part of the linac was tried intensively. Some broken instruments were replaced with those in the upstream part that is not used for the injection to the Photon Factory. RF aging was carried out through "Golden week" (Japanese holidays between late April and early May). Test operation of the linac started on May 10th. Similar work was done for the storage ring and beamlines. Baking of beamlines was carried out through the Golden week. The tests for the beam injection and following storage in the Photon Factory are expected to be conducted started May 16th.
[Press Release]
Photon Factory secures research opportunities for its users
[Announcement from KEK]
Donation from CERN goes to orphans of the earthquake.
Damage caused by the recent earthquake and recovery prospects by KEK Director General
[Press Release]
Director of Photon Factory reports the damages of the recent earthquake and its recovery prospects
The shield wall that separates the storage ring tunnel and the NE experimental hall of PF-AR needs to be reloaded. Other shield walls are fairly sound and are repaired rather easily.
After visual inspection, all the beamlines are tested with the help of limited electricity. Some beamlines and experimental chambers were exposed to air owing to the damage of beam pipe or bellows. The broken parts are replaced and pumping and baking are progressing now. A small diffractometer fell down from a stage and a diffractometer derailed from its positioning rail and some vacuum chambers tipped down owing to the earthquake. Apart from these serious damages, ten some turbo-molecular pumps, some vacuum gauges, and some PCs didn't run well, thus they must be repaired or replaced. Of course more careful tests will be required to evaluate the soundness of the spectrometers and other precision instruments, damage of biological samples may be more serious.
A rather serious aftershock occurred on April 11, but there found no damage.
The aging of RF cavities will continue through Golden week holidays and electron beam will be emitted about the middle of May from the linac. If all goes well, we are planning to inject the electrons to the PF ring and the PF-AR ring about the middle of May and the end of May, respectively.
[Announcement from PF]
Supporting letter from the President of AOFSRR to the Director of the Office for Quantum Radiation Research, MEXT
We have been carrying out the check of interlock systems, the vacuum and the control systems of beamlines since the end of March. Eleven beamlines, BL-7, 15, 16, 27, 28, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, have been tested until April 1. Although some vacuum gauges and pumps didn't function well, most of the vacuum gauges, pumps and interlock systems worked well. The rack containing interlock system of BL-28 tipped over. However, the interlock system worked well when it was lifted up, though two vacuum gauges didn't work well. We are going to finish the initial test of the interlock systems, the vacuum systems of all the beamlines at PF 2.5-GeV ring by April 6th. We expect the damage of beamlines is not so serious as we estimated.
[Announcement from PF]
Questionnaire survey for beamtime request (Deadline: April 5th)
[Announcement from PF]
PF Publication Database is now available.
[Announcement from PF]
・Electric power supply recovered in all the buildings in PF and PF-AR area on March 28.
・Safety inspection of cranes in PF and PF-AR is to be carried out on March 30 and 31.
Infrastructures: The transformers and the ceramic insulators were heavily damaged, and the electricity was stopped for two days. The drain plant for the groundwater was partly harmed, but later fixed and is now functioning. Tap water supply has been recovered on March 22nd. The plant for cooling water was seriously impaired. The gas supplied by the town of Tsukuba and used by the plant for preparing cooled-water, has not been recovered yet.
Linac: Some of the RF cavities have moved by as much as 10 cm in the beam direction. Several vacuum bellows were broken, hence disturbing the vacuums (Photo 1). One of the triplet Q-magnet was inclined and fell down (Photo 2). Many control cabinets, tool boxes etc., tipped over (Photo 3), and other instruments dropped out. Accumulating groundwater could be noticed at the underground floor of the linac building, including the slow positron facility.
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PF 2.5GeV ring： No serious damages were observed during the initial visual inspection. The vacuum condition of the storage ring remains to be checked since no electricity is supplied for the vacuum gauges etc. Minor damages were noticed everywhere. A bellows at the downstream of the gate valve of one RF section was broken, causing the vacuum to leak (photo 4). Although the vacuum of the cavities is believed to have remained intact, the bellows between the cavities were deformed by the shock. As a direct consequence, an over-all alignment will be required. Additionally, differences in the floor level at some joints of the buildings along the transport line were confirmed. Finally, several control cabinets tipped over, and many equipment such as displays went down.
PF beamlines: Some control cabinets including a few safety-interlock control systems collapsed (Photos 5-7). Similarly, several vacuum chambers tipped over (Photo 8). One diffractometer was derailed from its positioning rail (Photo 9), while another one fell down from its support table (Photo 10). A full investigation of the damages for these equipments remains to be completed. Besides, some unlocked tool cabinets dropped over (Photon 11), and insufficiently fixed shelves followed the same way. Many PC displays and equipments stored in shelves were also found on the floor (Photo 12).
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PF-AR 6.5GeV ring：A difference in the floor level at the junction of the buildings appeared, causing stress to bellows in the storage ring (photo 13). Deviations of the lead blocks between the experimental hall and the ring were induced as well (photo 14). A more detailed evaluation of the eventual damages while using electric power, and performance tests will be required.
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PF-AR beamlines: No severe damages were observed during the visual inspection of the beamlines, but some displays etc. dropped down. An unlocked tool cabinet tipped over at the NE experimental hall.
Future prospect： It is very hard to perform the restoration smoothly and rapidly under the very limited electrical supply presently available. Although we are focusing our efforts for a complete restoration of the facility in the shortest delay, the experiments initially scheduled between May and July will be hard to carry out.
We are sorry for the inconvenience caused. Please accept our gratitude for your kind understanding and support.
[Announcement from PF] PF Publication Database hasn't been accessible due to a shortage of electricity caused by the earthquak that hit the north-eastern part of Japan.
[Announcement from PF] The scheduled operations for the months of May to July 2011 were cancelled.
Dear PF users and colleagues
We would like to express our sincere sympathy to people who have been affected by and suffer from the catastrophic earthquake which hit the north eastern Japan on Friday March 11th, and the subsequent crisis in the nuclear power plants in Fukushima. We would also like to convey our gratitude to PF users and colleagues for sending us the warm words and support in this very challenging time. Since the user operation had finished on the morning of March 11, nobody was injured by the devastating earthquake. However, the damages of the facility are not negligible and it will need a substantially long period of time to restart the user program. The situation is becoming better day by day and we could restart the KEK web site and mailing system on March 15. Please refer to the KEK web site on the present situation of infrastructures and other information (http://www.kek.jp/intra-e/index.html).
photo 1 lobby of the PF Bldg. |
Photo 2, 3 PF Hall |
