[Escoordminutes] ES Coordination Meeting-Oct

[Lew Serna]

Minutes for the ES Division Coordination Meeting held on Tuesday, 
October 6, 2009, at 10:30 am, in the LL CB conference room. Attending 
were Lew Serna, Ramon Gutierrez, Jim Ruff, Guy Stanzione, Martin Lopez 
and Bob Briolo.


BUDGET —FY2010 budget is now in effect. Spend with assumption that you 
have 80% of FY2009 budget for now. No firm word on when or what the 
stimulus money will be spent on until possibly tomorrow. It is likely 
that some ES Division items on submitted lists will be funded such as AZ 
bearings, track, VSQ repairs, VLBA track work and bus acquisition. The 
stimulus monies will need to be spent by Sept. 2010. $10K annual budget 
for Antenna oil is available (Use account# 53361-4627).


Surplus Tires—the pile of bad tires is growing. Business division is 
looking for a place to take them to because the Socorro dump does not 
want to accept them. The cost for disposal of bad tires rests with the 
Auto Shop. No action until further notice.

VLBA – The Mauna Kea TT visit is complete. Elevation bearing grease 
samples for the “EL synchro side bearing shows” metal particles. A trip 
to replace the el bearing needs to be scheduled.

The Brewster and North Liberty (and Hancock?) foundations continue to 
degrade and will require urgent repairs in the near future at an 
approximate cost of $15K each. Foundation work is expected to be funded 
in FY2010. Work is preferred in the fall or spring not in the winter 
since it requires too much time to cure.

HN and KP require one each wheel assembly to be replaced. A short shaft 
should be used on the spare wheel since it will fit assemblies at all sites.

We will continue in FY2010 with Maintenance visits to HN, FD and BR. A 
meeting will be called soon to plan visits.

Repair of the subreflector brought back from St. Croix is at a 
standstill. Tony has been transferred to track crew so another person 
has to be trained to repair. New hire will arrive soon.

MK dish panels that were damaged will need to be repaired for spares.

It is possible that passports will be required in future visits to St. 
Croix.

Guy has ordered new materials (more affordable for making spare dichroic 
panels. Two will be fabricated for testing. Testing will occur at the 
VLA for a comparison between the old and new materials.

AZ BEARINGS – The purchase of 5 new bearings has been submitted for 
funding with stimulus money. Installation bolts should be ordered along 
with the purchase of the Bearings. If the budget allows it is desirable 
to have Antenna 5’s bearing refurbished at half the price of a new one. 
We have two spare bearings, one bearing usable as an emergency spare 
only and has been labeled “emergency spare only”. Older grease samples 
show that antennas 25, 10 and 20, are candidates for scheduled bearing 
changes. Antenna 25 is an EVLA antenna and it has the worst sample, but 
the Gearbox on antenna #6 needs to be changed so its bearing may be 
next. New grease samples of all VLA antennas have been taken. An 
estimated three weeks in the AAB are required before a bearing change 
can occur. 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 for repair. 13 bearings have been replaced to date.

Ka Band-- outfitting will require manpower from Antenna Mechanical 
group. The outfitting must be completed in 24 months time. Antenna 
Mechanics may need help to support this effort. VLBA Electrical work 
should be performed by licensed Electricians.

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 
barricaded to prevent its use. There is no urgency for this project 
since safety has declared that there is no need for this stairway as a 
means of emergency egress. Work on the eastern stairway will continue as 
the workload permits. No further progress.

ST Croix PAINT MAINTENANCE VISIT—It is Apparent that a follow up 
painting program should be initiated preferably in the fall. A 
reasonable price has been offered by the contractor that helped with the 
original major antenna painting. If the contractor cannot be hired then, 
it may be desireable to send a crew to St. Croix to continue painting 
areas where bleed through is evident. If this is not possible due to 
budgetary constraints, then perhaps the site techs could do the painting 
for 3 weeks straight with hired help sometime in the fall. Jon will 
recommend that Site Techs do spot repairs until enough funds are 
available for a follow up painting program.


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 
CN5, CN6, CN7 and BN5 with BN5 being the worst. They have separated far 
enough in about 33 years that 1 bolt (one on a reward pad) can no longer 
be used to secure the antenna pad to the foundation pillar. Modification 
of the CN5, CN6 and BN5 plates are complete and the plates are 
reinstalled. The plates on CN7 will be modified as soon the pad is 
vacant. This will solve the immediate problem of setting down antennas 
on these foundations.

Markers have been set for taking measurements to try and see which 
pillars are actually moving and at what rate. No change has been 
observed between loaded and unloaded measurements thus far however 
better; finer measurements need to be taken throughout the year. 
Measurements taken in August 2009 showed no movement.

If the pillars are moving apart it is felt that there may be no 
practical way of preventing the movement. It is believed that if this is 
the case it would be more desirable/practical to build an additional 
foundation next to the bad ones. Another option is that if the pillar 
movement is very slow it may be adequate to modify/redesign the mounting 
plates in order to make up and correct for the movement. In any case it 
would be desirable to get inspection of the foundations and a 
recommendation for action. A cost estimate for an inspection has been 
requested to an outside firm.

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 has been put on the funding wish list.

HOT WATER LOOP. A project is submitted to install a hot water loop using 
Correlator waste heat: The difference between the summer load and winter 
load is mostly due to heating (at least 300kW). However, even during the 
coldest mornings the cooling tower is ventilating correlator waste heat 
into the atmosphere. We already use some of the heat in the Control 
Building, but by extending the hot water loop to other buildings, we may 
be able to reduce our power demand. The WIDAR correlator will have an 
even higher heat output to work with.

This project mainly consists of burying a hot water loop and using heat 
exchangers similar to what many complexes of buildings use. Payback on 
this project could be as quick as 1 year. Bob Broilo will investigate 
and provide further information. This project has the potential to save 
$250K/year on our power bill.

VLA AZ GEARBOX’s (Antenna 5 etc..)- Antenna 5’s #2 gearbox experienced a 
catastrophic failure on Wednesday, April 15, 2009. Antenna 5 #1 gearbox 
was ok. The bad gearbox was replaced with the spare gearbox. The bad 
gearbox is repaired. Three gears will be fabricated in a shop out of 
Carlsbad, NM for around $800ea. A reverse engineering of two other gears 
has been requisitioned. It was discovered that shaft endplay in the 
internal gearing was excessive and it is believed that this is the 
reason for the excessive wear of internal gears.

VLA Gearboxes are due for oil changes. A plan to change around 10 
antennas per year is being formulated beginning with remaining 6 VLA 
antennas and then continuing with all EVLA antennas @ approx. 10/ year. 
Antenna gearboxes will be inspected during the EVLA conversions in the AAB.

BALLAST DOORS-- New project is proposed to convert manual opening of 
ballast car doors to hydraulic controlled opening of the doors for 
dispensing ballast from the cars. Much dust is created and the operator 
is too close to the doors to be able to observe the dispensing properly 
and safely. This Project’s cost estimate is around $8K.

VSQ’s- A decision to raze two VSQ buildings is being considered to 
reduce maintenance and upkeep of buildings. VSQ’s are no longer being 
used like they once were. One VSQ building is sufficient to accommodate 
visiting scientists and occasional guests. A decision as to which one of 
the buildings needs to be made and plans to raze is required.

Diesel Tank Liner- The diesel tank containment needs upgrading. Either a 
double-walled tank or a plastic liner would work to replace the dike 
that is currently in place. Guy is investigating the options.

OPERATIONS ROOM REMODEL—New carpet will be installed in January.

Water Tank—Water Tank inspection for corrosion or repainting will occur 
this year. Cathodic protection system maintenance is transferred from 
the Grounds to Electrical group.

EVLA;
Civil—The Air Conditioning system needs to be tied in to the CPCC for 
controlling of air handlers when desirable and during emergency 
shutdowns. The installation of 6 twist lock outlets to power additional 
racks in the correlator room is complete. Fire alarm testing with 
Operations on August 25, 2009 was successful. Annual power supply PM’s 
were completed as well.

EVLA Antennas—The Antenna Group must completed mechanical overhauls to 
23 antennas to meet the retrofit schedule for EVLA design in FY2009.

A total of 20 S-band (2-4 GHz) feed horns were fabricated in FY2009.

Antennas will remain in the D array for 7 months.

As antenna #7 goes on line it is desirable to replace some of the early 
EVLA antennas with newer version EVLA antennas. Older versions will 
begin to be decommissioned (since the VLA Correlator cannot operate more 
than 22 antennas) for upgrades in the field. Antenna #17 will be 
decommissioned on Monday, Aug. 10. There will also be a period of 2 
months (Jan. & Feb.) that there will be no observing due to the 
Correlator being shutdown. This is an opportunity to bring older 
antennas up to date.

SAFETY REPORT: No safety officer present.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Ruth Guin of the Public Health Office will be at the VLA on Thursday, 
October 8 at 1:00 pm in the VLA Cafeteria Conference Rm to administer 
seasonal flu shots. The H1N1 vaccine is currently not available and will 
be administered at a later date. If you would like to receive the 
seasonal vaccine, please call or email Theresa McBride so we can give 
Ruth an accurate head count.