Draft: Rules concerning Superconducting Magnets and Dilution Refrigerator Experiments

Experiments involving superconducting magnets and/or dilution refrigerators are labor-intensive for the sample environment staff and imply a quite high risk of problems, especially at the beginning of an experiment. In order to minimize beam time losses due to ... We therefore suggest to implement rules for this type of experiments.

Restrictions concerning magnets and/or dilution refrigerator experiments

• On weekends or holidays, is not possible to start magnet or dilution refrigerator experiments
• Support during weekend or in the evening may not be provided (there is no sample environment stand-by). If problems occur, it should be tried to contact the sample environment staff, but not during the night (10 p.m. - 8 a.m.). In the case that the contact can not be established, the experiment might have to be suspended until the next working day.
• Aligning the sample with neutrons must be done before the starting day.

Restrictions concerning dilution refrigerator experiments

• On weekends or holidays, sample changes are not possible
• Experiments starting on Fridays (or at a day before a holiday) are only allowed at the beginning of a beam block, i.e. when the refrigerator can already be mounted on the instrument the day before.
• The sample must be ready a workday before starting the experiment, except for the case where the stick is already used immediately before. In this case the rules for sample changes apply.
• Sample changes take a full working day, i.e. the warming up of the old sample must start before 8 a.m. Be aware that a delay of a working day may occur after a sample change.

Dilution Scheduling Policy

Since we have 2 dilution sticks, the number of experiments with this type of equipment has raised severely. We suggest to implement a limit the number of dilution experiments by the number of SINQ beam days divided by 7. This limit is based on an average experiment length of less than 6 days, and will allow to establish a schedule, where most of the time only one dilution refrigerator is running at a time.