FY 2020 and 2021 Survey Results
The HFIR and SNS User Office surveys users following each of their experiments. Both onsite and remote users are surveyed. The survey helps us identify any issues that users may encounter and asks them for suggestions on improving their experience. In FY 2021, we sent out 608 user surveys with a 40% response rate.
We’ve used the information users sent back in the survey comments to help prioritize improvements at our facilities and on our instruments. Comments made in recent user surveys included 87 instrument specific requests. We’ve fully implemented 26 of these requests and another 16 are currently in development. We’re happy to share with you the impact your requests have made.
Listed below are the many instrument improvements that resulted, in part, from your feedback in FY2020 and FY2021 surveys.
| Instrument | Your Concern | Response |
| POWGEN | Diffraction under external magnetic field | Slam Sam magnet was commissioned and is open for user community for low-temperature region |
| Automatic refilling of LHe | Orange Cryostat | |
| Higher temperatures (above 300 K) | JANIS will heat up to 750 K and MICAS to 1200o | |
| TOPAZ | Lower temperature environment, down to ~5 K | TOPAZ Cryogoniometer was commissioned in 2020 for data collection down to 5 K |
| Protection for the sample to prevent it from falling | Sample pin modified for better surface contact to secure the sample mount | |
| HYSPEC, SEQUOIA | High magnetic field capability | 14 T vertical-bore split-coil steady-state magnet |
| ARCS | Update the local installation of mantid to python 3 | Mantid update implemented |
| Automated exchange gas system | ARCS now has a standard exchange gas handling system and software control that was designed in-house and implemented at multiple beamlines | |
| Remotely Control the Helium and vacuum valve without opening the hatch | This is now allowed using the installed automated exchange gas system | |
| SNAP | A cryostat capable of heating/cooling a pressure cell between RT and 50 K in less time | Our top-loading CCR was redesigned |
| MAG-REF | Need a higher field | Mag-10 is now in routine use and can provide fields up to 4.7T reliably |
| EQ-SANS | Rheo-SANS would be a very useful capability | Rheo-SANS has been implementated |
| VULCAN | Make the connection of the thermocouple stable to the furnace | Addressed by our new sample holder in a vacuum furnace |
| VISION | An auto-sample loader | An automatic sample changer proved very unreliable. Focus has shifted to a much smaller sample changer with a few samples now in testing |
| IMAGING | An exhaust system installed at the beam area to take the gases outside the building | This has been implemented |
| Need easier software | Implemented using Jupyter Notebook | |
| GP-SANS | Sample change-out process takes a lot of time, due to the under-powered heater | We’ve redone the CCR-W both with heaters Warm-up is faster, helping with sample changes |
| FIE-TAX | A magnet that could be used for field sweeps | All our cryomagnets can be used for field sweeps now |
| WAND | Reduce the time required for the processing and reduction of data collected | Major effort was on data reduction functionality over the last two years, the data reduction process and analysis of the data is much improved |
