Minutes of SHUG Executive Committee Meeting of June 30, 2003

The Executive Committee met at the SNS building in Oak Ridge TN, at 8:15AM for an all day on site visit. 9 of the 11 members were able to attend. They were:

Paul Butler (Secretary)
Takeshi Egami (immediate past Chair)
Christina Hoffmann
Joanna Krueger (Chair)
Misture
Nancy Ross
Paul Sokol
John Tranquada (past chair)
David Vaknin

The group departed for HFIR where we were given a tour of the facility and shown the new triple axis machines running on their new software. This was followed by a brief presentation/introduction by Greg Smith on the instruments (both running and planned) including time lines, instrument scientists and handouts with specifications. Coffee was then served and the committee was able to view posters and mingle with the instrument scientists to discuss particular areas of interest.

Next the group traveled to the SNS construction site where the central lab and office (CLO) building had its steel structure complete and the linac was already buried. The site was quite impressive as was the pace of work and the committee could look forward to the day soon when the on site visit would take place in the CLO.

From the construction site the meeting moved to the SNS temporary offices in Oak Ridge where SNS instrument scientists joined us, and Ian Anderson gave us an overview of the status of the instrumentation. He showed that 16 of the potentially 24 instruments are already accepted with several others in the works. The tables indicated that only one moderator remained with ports unspoken for, underscoring the need for the second target station sooner rather than later.

The committee also heard from Lou Santodonato and Greg Smith with regards to existing (at HFIR) and planned sample environment issues. Lou indicated the need for testing new equipment and discussed some collaborative effort in that regard with other parts of ORNL. The committee brought up issues of maintenance and accuracy, particularly as regards temperature, as key areas of concern. Standardization of sample environment interfaces across instruments and perhaps even between HFIR and SNS were mentioned. Lou mentioned that the first piece of equipment being bought by SNS is going to be available at HFIR soon and will remain there as a testing site until SNS is ready. Mention was also made of sharing equipment which is expensive and not a “workhouse” piece between the two sites, though issues of transportation would have to be resolved. Staffing levels were raised in particular as regards maintenance of equipment and availability over weekends.

The committee heard from Lee Robertson about the new HFIR acquisition software and Doug Abernathy about the DANSE software project. Doug is instrument scientist on the ARCS instrument which is developing the DANSE concept but noted that he was not really an expert on the software side. The committee was certainly intrigued by DANSE but would like to know more. In particular issues of cost and standalone operation were discussed.

Herb Mook director of the neutron scattering center at HFIR and Thom Mason, SNS director addressed the committee briefly. Several issues were discussed. In particular, the desire by management for the committee to poll its membership on a variety of issues – beginning with feedback from the first round of users at HFIR.

Finally the committee met briefly on its own. Paul Butler brought up the fact that the committee needs to start work soon on the next SHUG elections, indicating that a variety of things have to happen in series making the time much shorter than one would think. Further discussion was tabled till next meeting. Takeshi urged that we not meet in August but rather meet next in September and this was generally accepted. David Vaknin as HFIR special committee chair agreed to prepare a survey for review by the committee to be sent out to those who went through the first round of proposals and if necessary have a meeting of the special committee.

The meeting ended shortly after 5PM

The committee is grateful to all the staff at HFIR and SNS for making this a pleasant and very informative session despite the short notice.