FIES building

The summer of 2012 showed many long periods of time with too warm temperature in the FIES room. This summer clearly was the warmest since FIES was placed in its dedicated building. The deviations in temperature are long term, and it takes a few days for the building to cool after the outside air has dropped. This indicates that it is the whole building, and likely also the part of the mountain that the building is dug-in to, that is heating up in these hot periods. Airing the FIES room by opening the door to the actively cooled front-room helps but is insufficient to cool back to normal levels. We cannot circulate outside air as it is very dusty during these hot spells, and we may need active cooling. Painting the mountain and building white will prevent a warm-up but might not be allowed.

To limit the heating of the FIES room we decided to remove the need to place the vacuum pump in the FIES room. A remotely controlled system was designed to operate the vacuum valve of the dewar of the FIES detector. The valve will be connected to a long tube that goes to the front room where the pump will be installed. To install the tube a 10cm diameter whole will have to drilled through the 25cm armed-concrete wall of the FIES room.