From lserna at nrao.edu Tue Feb 2 17:30:56 2010 From: lserna at nrao.edu (Lew Serna) Date: Tue, 02 Feb 2010 15:30:56 -0700 Subject: [Escoordminutes] ES Division Coordination Meeting minutes-Jan 2010 Message-ID: <4B68A7A0.3060401@aoc.nrao.edu> Minutes for the ES Division Coordination Meeting held on Tuesday, January 26, 2010, at 10:30 am, in the LL CB conference room. Attending were Lew Serna, Ramon Gutierrez, Jim Ruff, Guy Stanzione, E Cole, James Sullivan, Charley Chavez, Jon Thunborg, and Bob Broilo. BUDGET ---Budget allocations are as distributed in Division reports. There has been a reduction in our operations travel budget so travel is limited to essential travel only. RFQ's for AZ bearings, track, VSQ repairs, VLBA track work and bus acquisition were let in January 2010. The $10K FY2010 annual budget for Antenna oil has been spent. Monies for VLBA foundations, SC painting and the MK el bearings is still being sought but are expected to become available soon. 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 --MK Elevation bearing grease samples for the "EL synchro side" bearing still shows metal particles. A trip to replace the el bearing needs to be scheduled. No change in the size of metal flakes showing in the monthly samples taken thus far. 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 suffered a catastrophic azimuth wheel axle failure. The TT trip scheduled for this year will be combined with the repair. We will continue in FY2010 with Maintenance visits to FD and BR. A follow up meeting will be called after repairs to HN to plan further VLBA visits. KP will 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. Repair of the subreflector brought back from St. Croix can continue now that Randy is respirator trained and fitted. MK dish panels that were damaged will need to be repaired for spares. Eric reports that passports will not 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 soon. AZ BEARINGS -- The purchase of 6 new bearings has been submitted for funding with stimulus money. Installation bolts should be ordered along with the purchase of the Bearings. 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 will changed next congruent with the gearbox repair. 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 some manpower from Antenna Mechanical group. The outfitting must be completed in 24 months time. Antenna Mechanics will be required to support this effort during Tiger Team visits. Funding for this project is tentative. 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. The concrete landing on the north stairway is deteriorating to the point that closure to visitor traffic is necessary. Repairs should be made soon. The stairway is usable for emergency egress if necessary. ST Croix PAINT MAINTENANCE VISIT--- It is desirable to send a crew to St. Croix to continue with brush painting the areas where bleed through is evident. A follow up painting program at SC will cost around $17K per visit. Funds are available for making purchases and planning a trip early this year. Additionally the site techs could do some painting possibly with hired help sometime in the future. Jon will recommend that Site Techs do spot repairs until enough yearly funds are made available for regular follow up painting trips. 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. Recent Measurements taken continue to show 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..)- In addition to antenna 5's catastrophic gearbox failure, gearbox inspections reveal bad AZ #2 gearboxes in antennas 6 and 7. A plan to replace these gearboxes this summer is being developed. VLA Gearboxes are due for oil changes. A plan to change around 10 antennas per year is underway beginning with remaining 6 VLA antennas and then continuing with all EVLA antennas @ approx. 10/ year. BALLAST DOORS---This project converts 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 is underway. Cost estimate is around $8K. VSQ's- A decision to raze VSQ buildings is being considered to reduce maintenance and upkeep of buildings. It would cost around $60K make repairs to sprinklers and to bring the VSQ's to a reasonable state of operation. VSQ's are no longer being used like they once were. The site director has not made the decision to demolish them or retain one or more of the structures for storage of items that are rodent resistant. We do know we won't use them as "people" space any more. A request for approval was sent to NSF today to re-scope the ARRA funds allocated to the VSQs from sprinkler repair to retiring them. Turning off utilities and beginning of demolition is on hold until we have further guidance from Bob Dickman. Diesel Tank - The diesel tank containment needs upgrading and will not meet state regulations after 2011. A double-walled tank is the logical choice to replace the dike that is currently in place. Funds are being sought. This action will need to take place before 2011. Guy is working on RFQ for this including pressurized fuel dispenser and Gasoline Dike repairs. A proposal has been submitted estimated costs are $75K. OPERATIONS ROOM REMODEL---New carpet is installed. Modcomp room remains uncarpeted until sometime this summer when the modcomps will be removed. Water Tank---Water Tank inspection for corrosion and possible repainting will occur this year and should be scheduled soon. Cathodic protection system maintenance is transferred from the Grounds group to the Electrical group. EVLA; Civil--- VLA site Utility Transformer and Generator Transformers will be marginal once the EVLA full load is on line. Funds are available with a target date of June 1, 2010 for acquiring the larger, 3MW Transformers. B. Broilo will coordinate with Skip and SEC on acquiring the utility transformer and establishing a timeframe for its replacement. EVLA Antennas--- The Final Four S-band (2-4 GHz) feed horns will completed by April. Antennas will remain in the D array until 5/24/2010. SAFETY REPORT: 13 accidents at NRAO NM. Record is improvement over last year. A summary report will be issued soon. Safety mtg. Scheduled for January 28 (canceled due to snow day). New fire extinguishers are being installed in antennas. ANNOUNCEMENTS: _VLA - Thursday, Jan 28, 2010 _TIAA-CREF Talk 9:00 am - 10:00 am, VLA Cafeteria Conference Rm. Individual sessions 10:15 am -- 3:00 pm, Control Bldg Conf Rm 122, By appointment only Contact Theresa McBride.----_ _CANCELLED A nurse from the Socorro Public Health Office will conduct a Flu Shot Clinic at the AOC this week. She will offer the seasonal vaccine as a nasal mist and will offer the H1N1 vaccine as a shot. VLA employees should contact Theresa McBride if interested in either or both of the flu vaccines. Arrangements will be made for a nurse to come to the VLA, date and time will be announced at a later date. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: