glance traceability - web system for equipment traceability and radiation monitoring for the atlas...

8/2/2019 Glance traceability - Web system for equipment traceability and radiation monitoring for the ATLAS experiment

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Glance TraceabilityWeb System for Equipment Traceabilityand Radiation Monitoring for the ATLAS experiment

L.H.R.A.vora12, J. Molina-Prez1, K. Pomms1, K. K. Galvo2, C. Maidantchik3

1CERN, Switzerland

2Escola Politcnica, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Brazil

3COPPE, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Brazil

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

Abstract. During the operation, maintenance, and dismantling periods of the ATLAS

Experiment, the traceability of all detector equipment must be guaranteed for logistic and safetymatters. The running of the Large Hadron Collider will expose the ATLAS detector toradiation. Therefore, CERN shall follow specific regulation from French and Swiss authoritiesfor equipment removal, transport, repair, and disposal. GLANCE Traceability, implemented inC++ and Java/Java3D, has been developed to fulfill the requirements. The system registers andassociates each equipment part to either a functional position in the detector or a zone outside

the underground area through a 3D graphical user interface. Radiation control of the equipmentis performed using a radiation monitor connected to the system: the local background gets

stored and the threshold is automatically calculated. The system classifies the equipment as nonradioactive if its radiation dose does not exceed that limit value. History for both locationtraceability and radiation measurements is ensured, as well as simultaneous management ofmultiples equipment. The software is fully operational, being used by the Radiation ProtectionExperts of ATLAS and trained users since the first beam of the LHC. Initially developed for

the ATLAS detector, the flexibility of the system has allowed its adaptation for the LHCbdetector.

1. IntroductionThe ATLAS detector is one of the major experiments that compose the LHC (Large Hadron Collider),

the biggest particle accelerator ever built [1]. This experiment will make possible to analyze the most

basic aspects of matter, allowing a better understanding of the beginning of the universe.

During its operation, ATLAS will be exposed to radiation, being necessary a special care with the

safety of the experiment in matters of the access of the installations and for the detector maintenance.

Due to radioactivity exposure, CERN has to follow specific regulation from French and Swiss

authorities for equipment removal, transport, repair, and disposal.


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The radiological factor divides the underground area in two zones: the Radioactive Waste zone

(Zone de Dechets Nucleaires ZDN) and the Conventional zone (Zone de Dechets Conventionnels

ZDC) [2]. The Radioactive Waste zone is composed of material which has been calculated to be

radioactive after ten years of LHC operation at nominal luminosity and two years of cooling, while the

Conventional zone is composed of material which will be non radioactive at that same period and

conditions. However, during the operation of ATLAS, the radiological conditions are different when

compared to the assumptions made for the waste zone. Consequently, the radiological risk for

maintenance are the short-lived radioactive isotopes by nature not taken into account in the waste

study, but responsible in fact of finding radioactive material inside the Conventional zone. Therefore,

this zone is separated in two sub-zones: the Conventional non radioactive zone, no radioactive material

should be in this zone, and the Operational zone, where the material can potentially result to be

radioactive during the ATLAS openings. Specific procedures shall be followed for the access of the

cavern and for the equipment handling according the zone and its respective radiological risk.

The people involved with the ATLAS experiment who have access to the detector installations have

different roles in the detector activities, which must be reflected on any procedure related with the

detector equipment. One of these roles is the radioprotection expert, which is the person trained to

handle equipment that comes from radioactive zones or showing a level of radiation above the safety

threshold. In any of these cases, he/she is the responsible to ensure that the appropriated procedure willbe followed. There is also the responsible for workshops and institutes, which is the person in charge

of the location where the maintenance and repair of equipment is done. The role of equipment

responsible is by default given to the person who registered the part. Besides these specific roles, there

is also the member of ATLAS sub-experiments, which may have permission to remove equipment

from the detector installations. No matter the role, every person must follow the procedures to ensure

location traceability and to measure the dose of the part when making any action.

This article presents Glance traceability, which is the system created to manage data and measure

radioactivity of ATLAS equipment, describing how is done the data manipulation, its functionalities to

ensure traceability, as well as the measuring of the radiation dose. The architecture of the system is

discussed, followed by the conclusions and results achieved during its development and working

period.

2. The Glance TraceabilityGlance traceability [3] has been developed to fulfill the safety and logistic requirements for equipment

removal and installation from/in the detector facilities. The system provides tools to make the data

management, ensure the location traceability and allow also the measure of the radiation dose. Labels

with crucial information can be generated by the interface and sent to a printer, to be then sticked on

the part. The history of the equipment radiation dose and location is kept. The functionalities of the

system to accomplish those requirements are described below.

2.1 Equipment data managementAt the beginning of the system development, a specific database was created for ATLAS to the store

all the information related to equipment, having its creation considered important to ensure morecontrol and access over information. This repository was initially fulfilled with existent data from

MTF (Manufacturing and Test Folder) [4], that is a tool of CERN that provides information aboutequipment of all LHC experiments, for then start the management of this information by Glance

traceability.

Each equipment inserted in the ATLAS Equipment database must have a unique identification, that

might have been imported from MTF, created by the part responsible, or generated by the system. The

ID generation is made taking into account the detector system to which the part belongs, its subsystem,

and the institute, creating then a sequence of meaningful characters. These characters will be

concatenated to a number generated by a query on the repository which checks the pre-existing IDs,

avoiding then the generation of identical equipment identification. The figure 1 shows an example of

the process to create an ID using the system.


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Besides a unique identification, the insertion of new equipment can also assign physical values,

such as weight, material composition and geometrical dimensions, achieving this through the

association with equipment types pre-defined. Because of the many existing options, these equipment

types are subdivided by ATLAS system. An optional other ID can also be defined to the part. The

figure 2 shows the interface to assign the equipment characteristics and to insert them into the

database.

All the equipment data in the database need to be accessible to allow modifications, ensure the

location traceability and the radiological control. A search interface was developed to fulfill this

requirement, accessing the repository by requesting the information through a query made with

multiple parameters defined by the user, and returning the results in the format of a table. The

interface allows the search by the equipment location and/or by entering its ID, which can be made

manually or by the use of a barcode reader that will read the information from the label sticked to the

equipment. It is also possible to make a detailed search, where a query with the creation date, ATLAS

system or by an alternative ID that was assigned to the part, can be built. The system displays also a 3D

view of the ATLAS facilities, making possible to select the exactly position of the equipment to be

found. The figure 3 shows an example of a simple search made by the system and also the detailed

search option.

After the search and selection of the desired equipment, the system provides an interface where is possible to modify the data describing the equipment, such as equipment type, other ID, or its

Figure 1. ID generation

Figure 2. Equipment insertion into the ATLAS Equipment database


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responsible. The assignment of the responsible is controlled by the system in a way that is only

possible to select people registered in the CERN database. If the equipment is going outside the

ATLAS facilities, there is the possibility of having as destination an external company, and the system

allows this type of choice by providing a list of registered companies, as well as the possibility to

register new entities. If the existing options of equipment types are not adequate to the part, the

creation of a new equipment type is possible. The figure 4 shows the interface to manage equipment

data, with all the available options and the multiple equipment management using tabs.

Figure 3. Search interface for equipment data

Figure 4. Data management of existent equipment

Besides changing basic information, this part of the system also allows to print labels for

traceability and identification, identify equipment location and measure the radiation dose. These

subjects will be discussed on the next sections of this paper.

2.2 Radiation control

The radioactive monitoring inside the ATLAS installations is a major issue for the safety of the

experiment, avoiding exposure and contamination by radiation on members of the collaboration. In


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order to make that control, equipment going inside or outside the cavern must have its dose measured,

which will be used as base for the choice of the procedure to be followed when handling the material.

When starting the procedure of the dose measurement of an equipment part, the value of the

background radiation shall be measured, and it will be used for the calculus of the threshold considered

safe. The measure is made through the communication between the radiation monitor and the system,

and achieved by a java applet developed for the system. The interface allows the measure during a

period of time variable, which can be chosen according the necessity. During this time, many values

are acquired discretely, with the average between them being used to calculate the threshold.

In the ATLAS experiment, there are two locations where the radiation dose of an equipment can be

measured, meaning that there are two possible values for the radiation background. The system handles

this situation by allowing the choice of the location where the measure is taken before any action. The

background value is then stored in the database to be used in future measures, being the same until

another dose is taken.

The measurement of the equipment dose is made through the interface, having its value acquired

also by the radiation monitor. The system makes a comparison of the value of the equipment dose to

the radiation threshold. If exceeded the limit, an alert message is shown, and a radioprotection expert

will ensure the correct procedure to be done.

Figure 5. Measure of the radiation background by the system

2.3 Tracking the location

During the operation, maintenance, and dismantling periods of the ATLAS Experiment, the traceability

of all detector equipment must be guaranteed for logistic and safety matters. To accomplish this

requirement, the system has functionalities that make possible to associate the equipment to either a

zone outside the underground area, or a functional position [5] in the detector.

For the underground area, the choice of the location is made through the integration of Glance

traceability with the ATLASlocation3D, which is a 3D graphical user interface that allows the

association of equipment to an existing functional position of the cavern. This application offers a

schematic view of the detector, identifying the zones, and splitting the ATLAS sub-detectors. Onlineinformation about available slots for association of boards in crates is also provided. This program,

integrated with the system allows the assignment of locations inside the radioactive zone only if the

person has the privilege to do it.

Locations outside the cavern, such as buildings or workshops, are listed in a drop down menu. In the

case that the destination of the equipment is not there, it is possible to create new areas by the use of an

option on the interface that allows the management of this kind of information. The figure 4 shows

how this can be done, displaying in addition some possible views of the detector by the use of

ATLASlocation3D.

2.4 Labels

All equipment shall have a label containing information needed to its identification in the ATLAS

Equipment database. In case of removal, the equipment should also be labeled with information of


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original location and destination, as well as its radiation dose every time that it goes in or out of the

detector facilities.

Labels can be generated and printed by the integration of a program that receives the information

retrieved of the database and produces the labels, which will be then sent directly to the printer. The

label for identification contains the part ID, plus a barcode having that same information, being useful

for quickly entering the data into the system to make a consult by the use of the barcode reader. On the

label with data about the equipment locations and the radioactive dose, besides to have also the current

date, an alert figure is included on its layout if the equipment dose exceeds the radiation threshold. The

figure 5 shows an example of labels generated by the system.

Figure 6. Making the traceability

Figure 7. Interface for printing labels3. ArchitectureGlance traceability accesses data from Oracle databases using AJAX, that is a group of interrelated

web development techniques used to create interactive web applications. With Ajax, the system can

retrieve data from the serverasynchronously in the background without interfering with the display and

behavior of the existing page.

Data retrieved from the server are described in XML format, acquired through the Glance Retrieval

Tool. This tool is an API of the Glance Project [6], that was developed for the ATLAS collaboration

and allows data retrieval of heterogeneous and spread repositories through the same search interface

[7]. The XML data is parsed on the system with JavaScript, making possible its use by the interface.

To update the database, the system communicates with the web server via the Common Gateway

Interface (CGI) using programs developed in C++, which receive the users input and passes it to the

repository. The GNU CgiCC library [8] is used to implement these programs. The updated data about
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the modified equipment is put together in an XML description and transferred to a CGI, leading to the

use of the Xerces-C++ library [9] to parse it before use it.

For the location traceability, the ATLASlocation3D is the most important tool. This 3D graphical

user interface (GUI) was developed in java/java3D starting from ATLASeditor3D [10] to show the

ATLAS detector and its installation in a 3D view. The underground area is divided by zones and

functional positions, offering a complete visualization of the cavern, and allowing the choice of the

location.

The communication with peripherals is also a fundamental part of the system, and it is achieved by

Java applets. The dose measured by the radiation monitor is accessed by the program, using the value

to make the analysis of the radiation level and the decision of the correct procedure for handling the

material. To print labels, the layout is generated by another applet using the data given by the interface.

4. ConclusionBecause of the radiation exposure at the detector facilities during its operation, the ATLAS experiment

needed a system to manage the material handling inside and outside of its installations. Moreover, the

measure of the radiation dose of all equipment leaving the cavern must be done to ensure the safety of

all the people involved. Therefore, Glance traceability has been created to fulfill all those requirements.

The interface manages the ATLAS equipment database, which stores information about physicalcharacteristics, location, radioactive dose and its respective histories records. To accomplish these

goals, the system was integrated with peripherals such as radiation monitor, printer and barcode reader,

making the related activities completely automatic. All the information is kept visible for any member

of the collaboration that has permission to access it.

The system is operational since the first beam in September 10th, 2008, being used by the

radioprotection experts and members of sub-experiments. A similar version for the LHCb experiment

was created and it is in full operation.

The next steps would be: the integration with the CERN ISRAM waste database; manage storage of

equipment/tooling in specific area workshop/buffer zone; and equipment hierarchy management.Storage of radioactive equipment should also be foreseen.

References[1] CERN Public webpage

http://public.web.cern.ch/public/

[2] Radiological Control of Material from the ATLAS Experimental Cavern

https://edms.cern.ch/document/867882/1

[3] The Glance traceability URL

http://atglance.web.cern.ch/atglance/atlas_track/

[4] MTF - Equipment Management Folder URL

http://edms.cern.ch/asbuilt/plsql/mtf.home

[5] Pomms K, Molina-Perez J, Galvo K K and Malyukova I 2007 ATLAS Database Installation

& Integration

http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/TCOORD/Activities/Installation/Database/index.html

[6] The Glance Project URLhttp://atglance.web.cern.ch/atglance/

[7] C. Maidantchik, F. F. Grael, K. K. Galvo, and K. Pomms. Glance project: a database

retrieval mechanism for the atlas detector. In CHEP2007.

[8] GNU 2007 Gnu cgicc library URL

http://www.gnu.org/software/cgicc/

[9] Foundation T A S 2007 Xerces C++ parser URL

http://xerces.apache.org/xerces-c/

[10] ATLASeditor3D

http://cern.ch/ATLASeditor3D
http://cern.ch/Publichttps://edms.cern.ch/document/867882/1http://atglance.web.cern.ch/atglance/atlas_track/http://edms.cern.ch/asbuilt/plsql/mtf.homehttp://atglance.web.cern.ch/atglance/http://www.gnu.org/software/cgicc/http://www.gnu.org/software/cgicc/http://atglance.web.cern.ch/atglance/http://edms.cern.ch/asbuilt/plsql/mtf.homehttp://atglance.web.cern.ch/atglance/atlas_track/https://edms.cern.ch/document/867882/1http://cern.ch/Public

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