Thanks to LPPFusion’s Research Scientist, Dr. Syed Hassan’s work on our roof in freezing temperatures, our furnace is now repaired with a new heat exchanger installed and our lab is again warm. For his work beyond the call of duty, Dr. Hassan has been designated a Hero of Fusion (Star with Five Icicles
Dr. Hassan removed the cracked heat exchanger (see chair in background for scale) and installed a new one on LPPFusion lab’s snowy roof.
We are moving forward towards new experiments. Dr. Hassan, and LPPFusion Chief Scientist Eric Lerner removed the cracked anode from the anode plate, working inside our glove box. The glove box protects us from any residual beryllium dust as it operates under negative pressure with a fan continuously exhausting it to the outside, where any dust is diluted to safe levels. Research Assistant Sam Grund documented the process with photos and videos. Our next step is to assemble the new anode onto the plate.
In addition, the high-level cleaning of our lab to eliminate the lead dust, which we previously detected, is now complete. The cleaning schedule and delays in some small but important new parts have put off our restarting experiments to late March.
Cleaning old anode in the glove box in preparation for disassembly from the plate (below the burgundy Kapton layer)