2014 LUG EC Onsite Meeting

Summary

On March 14th, 2014, the LANSCE user group executive committee (LUG-EC) convened a meeting with representatives from LANSCE management, and the management of each represented user facility – Weapons Neutron Research / Nuclear Science (WNR), Ultracold Neutrons (UCN), Proton Radiography (pRad), Isotope Production Facility (IPF), and the Lujan Neutron Scattering Center (Lujan Center). Each facility gave an open question and answer session with the LUG-EC, including a brief overview of issues during the past year and any new planned developments. Based on these presentations and internal discussions, the LUG-EC compiled a list of recommendations for facility management. The impact of risk mitigation on future beamtime scheduling was one focal point. Significant time was devoted to the future of the Lujan Center, following the March 4th announcement as part of the FY2015 budget request by the Department of Energy Office of Science Basic Energy Sciences (BES) that BES user program operations at Lujan would cease (activities by NNSA and other sponsors at Lujan are not directly impacted by this decision).

Recommendations

• LANSCE should improve its balancing of schedule flexibility with the planning needs of experiment. Recommend fixing the next year’s schedule six months in advance, but leaving the freedom to adjust if significant unexpected events occur, e.g. the events leading to the extra runtime provided in the last cycle.
• Recommend, if at all possible, planning for significantly more than two months of runtime in the upcoming cycle (typical time in the absence of risk mitigation would be 5-6 months).
• The water leak at target 4, while not a significant safety concern, did severely impact user operations in part because the spare target was not in ready-to-operate condition. Recommend, consistent with current accelerator risk mitigation work, that all other critical components for operations have readily available spares when technically possible.
• BES funding accounts for 40% of the Lujan operating budget, so, while a significant loss, does not shutdown unrelated programs at Lujan, including those funded by NNSA and Office of Science Nuclear Physics. Recommend identifying the unique and not-readily-duplicated capabilities of the Lujan center. Specific examples are the spallation modelling work, with impact across Los Alamos National Laboratory and at other US neutron sources, sample environments and pulse structure ideal for diffraction and total scattering, and the routine handling of radiological and live biological specimens.
• Further, the Lujan user program is a critical conduit for talented researchers into other laboratory programs. Recommend finding a mechanism by which a user program, in some form, can continue at the Lujan center. Two specific possibilities are to redefine smaller user programs for subsets of unique instruments, or to integrate *all* LANSCE user programs into a single coherent whole.

Attending Representatives

Executive Committee

• Tyrel M. McQueen (Chair) | Johns Hopkins University
• Mark Bowden (Past Chair) | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
• Albert Young (Vice Chair) | North Carolina State University
• Emil Bozin | Brookhaven National Laboratory
• Laura Dominik | Honeywell Inc.
• Jonathan Engle | Los Alamos National Laboratory
• Uwe Greife | Colorado School of Mines
• Mike Heffner | Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
• Frank Merrill | Los Alamos National Laboratory
• Daniel Salvat | Indiana University

Please note

Presentations and formal materials from LANSCE facilities are not necessary. However be prepared to discuss, expect to give a brief overview of issues during the year, and any new developments planned, with a focus on users. If presenting, plan on a 5-10 minute presentation with 10-15 minutes left for discussion.

Meeting Agenda