From lserna at nrao.edu Thu May 1 10:55:09 2008 From: lserna at nrao.edu (Lew Serna) Date: Thu, 01 May 2008 08:55:09 -0600 Subject: [Escoordminutes] ES Division April Coordination meeting minutes Message-ID: <4819D9CD.5010403@aoc.nrao.edu> Minutes for the ES Division Coordination Meeting held on Tuesday, April 29, 2008, at 10:30 am, in the LL CB conference room. Attending were Lew Serna, Charley Chavez, Ramon Gutierrez, Bob Broilo, Guy Stanzione, Martin Lopez, Gene Cole and Jon Thunborg. (Note: May ES coordination meeting is canceled) BUDGET ---Site & Wye Track budget is over $40K short but an effort to replace the $40K is being made. 4500 RR Ties have been ordered. Track will have to wait for more funds to order further track material. Spending may continue under the assumption that you have last years operating budget. Funds for ordering parts to overhaul the yellow bus engine are spent from the ops budget ($12K) which will likely overrun the Vehicle Maintenance Budget. Several pieces of equipment need to be replaced due to being worn out such as the Steam Cleaner ($3-4K), Band Saw ($6K) and Break. A request to Brent to search on surplus for these items would be worthwhile. Also hydraulic cylinders for the track mobile will need to be replaced at a cost of $6K. Several accounts are likely to be overspent so keep a close watch and order critical items only. Stock Proposal- Skip Lagoyda introduced a service whereby a company, Fastenal, can provide a shop stock of products that they sell in bins at individual VLA shops. The idea is that an inventory of products used in a shop can be maintained by a Fastenal representative. The representative would visit the VLA on a regular basis taking inventory and restocking his bins. The respective shop would then be charged on items removed from the stocked bin. This idea is attractive to the warehouse since this would reduce the cost of warehousing a large inventory. This may also be a good idea for maintaining certain products in different shops as well. Skip will arrange a meeting between Fastenal and Supervisors/leadmen to see if this is a service we can use sometime in the near future. VLBA -- Tiger Team visits to OV, NL are planned for 2008. St Croix will take an extended mechanical maintenance visit in the fall to replace Subreflector, Elevation Bearing, finish painting, install platform and change out one Azimuth wheel assembly. Antenna mechanics should ensure we have wheel assemblies ready for North Liberty, Owens Valley and St. Croix. We will maintain one spare as well. The platforms are planned to be completed in PT this year. The paint on the HN subreflector was deteriorating and its surface contour will require some work to get in final spec. The reflector will need to be prepared in time for the SC maintenance visit. A more robust box to ship the subreflector will be needed. TT Visits for this year are NL 4/30/08-5/07/08, OV 8/18/08-8/25/08. The BR foundation will require repairs in the near future due to deterioration at an approximate cost of $15K. MK dish panels that were damaged were replaced. The damaged panels need to be repaired for spares. AZ BEARINGS -- Next Bearing replacement for Antenna 28 will occur in July/August of 2008. Bob Broilo is the Bearing Change Supervisor for antenna 28. An estimated three weeks in the AAB are required before a bearing change can occur. A chordal diameter on the old bearing is needed for comparison to the replacement bearing. Parts from the bearings removed from antennas are needed for measuring and fitting of new parts and should be stored until they are scheduled to be shipped to Rotek for repair. Antenna 14, 16 & 18's bearings have been shipped to Rotek for refurbishment. Delivery of these bearings should be June of 2008. If possible bearing replacements will occur at a rate of one per year in order to maintain the EVLA outfitting schedule. There is one good Azimuth bearing on hand. One spare bearing should be maintained at all times in the event a catastrophic failure occurs however; we are reasonably assured that the 3 refurbished bearings will arrive this summer so we will use the spare for antenna 28 if necessary. Grease samples show that antennas 10, 20, are also good candidates for scheduled bearing changes. PROJECTS: Control building Stairways--- The Control Building Stairways are being replaced due to their rapid deterioration. The stairways will be replaced with an improved design conforming to ADA. The western stairway is complete. A new concrete landing will have to be poured at the base of the eastern stairway and the steps replaced. The eastern stairway is deemed hazardous and is currently barricaded to prevent its use. Work on the eastern stairway will continue as the workload permits. No further progress. ST Croix Maintenance Visit--- St. Croix Antenna has undergone extensive repair and painting work due to its severe corrosion problems. Work began on September 10 through December 21 completing 99 % of the painting. Some topcoat painting remains at the base of backup structure. In addition the AZ Wheel Assy, Subreflector and elevation bearing replacement work will be completed. This work along with finishing the painting is tentatively scheduled to occur in October 2008. The warehouse reports that there are enough parts to prepare for ST Croix and to maintain a spare (or 2ea). This St. Croix Trip is expected to last about 3 weeks. VLA ANTENNA FOUNDATION MOVEMENT--- A problem with north arm antenna foundation movement needs to be addressed. It appears that the two rearward station pillars have been slowly separating over the years at BN3 and BN5 with BN5 being the worst. They have separated far enough in about 33 years that 2 bolts (one on each reward pad) can no longer be used to secure the antenna pads to the foundation pillars. Markers have been set for taking measurements to try and see which pillars are actually moving and at what rate. If it becomes obvious that the plates need to be repositioned, this work is in progress. Measurements need to be re taken while the stations are without antennas. The plates from BN5 have been removed for modification in the machine shop. VLA LIGHTING- All high mercury content light bulbs should be eliminated from stock. A plan to replace all ballasts and bulbs to efficient electronic ballasts is initiated. In addition to removing the high mercury content bulbs the savings in kilowatt usage would payback the initial cost in less than 2 years. Skip is funding this energy project. The Control Building is complete and the Tech Services building is now being converted. GENERATOR REPAIRS--- Minor leaks were noticed at the engine rear seals and it is desirable to install a better fuel filtering system. A bearing on the generator unit also should be replacement as a PM. This work would cost around $15K and will be put on the funding wish list. POWER MONITOR--- A plan to install power monitoring equipment in the Hatch gear will require a power outage lasting 2 days. A hatch gear PM is also needed. The preferred time for installation would be the fall when the weather dry and calm. Perhaps the work can be scheduled on a weekend (or double maintenance day). The power monitoring equipment is very useful in determining our power quality needs and will keep operations informed of power status at all times. A time will need to be determined by operations. EVLA; Civil--- Correlator Room: A preventive measure to test batteries and lubricate the Correlator Door will be implemented by the ES Electrical group. Cable trays are ordered by Doug Gerard. DC Power supply Cable Tray layout will be coordinated in conjunction with Electronics Division data cables installation. The cleaning underneath the computer flooring will follow installation of cabling. FM 100 training is scheduled for August 8.. A mock Correlator rack will arrive so that a dry run on installation can be made to prepare for rigging and installing the real racks around May 15. Several groups will be involved with the rack installations and Guy Stanzione will coordinate the effort. EVLA Antennas--- Feeds: Contracts for casting S-band and laminating of the S-band are finalized. S-Band rings are being cut in preparation for assembly. For efficiency S-band feeds will be laminated two at a time every 8 weeks. The second S-Band Christmas tree will built using L-Band Christmas tree parts once the L-Band lamination work is complete sometime in early June. Out of 18 L Band feeds tested, there are 2 that remain on the on the shelf that have been tested. VSWR tests will be made to several L-Band feeds later this summer. It is desirable to install as many feeds as possible while in the AAB. Some S-band feeds will probably need to wait until the antennas are back in for overhauls. In the event remaining VLA antennas are shut down after the 22^nd EVLA antenna is complete it may be desirable to remove power and complete some of the outfitting tasks in the field for some groups. SAFETY REPORT : It is the NRAO policy not to do any asbestos work and any work that is to be done is to be contracted out. This is because of the cost burden that includes medical surveillance, training, as well as workers compensation insurance issues. Wednesday, April 30, Jody Bolyard is presenting the Leadership Training at the VLA site. He is presenting the training in Socorro on Tuesday. We are seeing minor injuries that are the result of folks not staying aware of their surrounding environment or improper lifting techniques. As you know, once we start seeing multiple minor injuries, we inevitably see a major one. TAILGATES--Supervisors and leadmen should conduct tailgate sessions daily. ANNOUNCEMENTS: PEP--- April-- Solicit self appraisals May 15--- PEP Training for Supervisors/leadmen May-June 30-- Supervisors complete forms and conduct interviews July 7--- All PEP's due in HR Manager/Supervisor Safety Training Session---- At the VLA Cafeteria conference room April 30th at 3:00 PM. All Hands Meeting with Bob Dickman at the VLA Cafeteria 11:00 am. on Thursday, May 1. Supervisor Affirmative Action Meeting on May 7, 9:30 in the VLA cafeteria conference room. PEP workshop for supervisors/leadmen at 10:00 am. on Thursday, May 15. VLA cafeteria conference room OTHER: Eleventh Synthesis Imaging Workshop June 10- June 17. VLA Tour for Synthesis Imaging Students will require the use of the 3 VLA buses and drivers on Sunday, June 15, 2008. Re-dedication of AOC with Senator Domenici at AOC on 5/30/2008. LMI-NSF Review of NM Ops 6-23 to 6-25. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: