Conclusions

Past experience in the maintenance of dry and oil-filled shielding windows can provide useful guidelines for window maintenance personnel at hot cell facilities. Several general conclusions may be drawn from years of operations and maintenance experience in this field.

These include:

1. Technician education and training on maintenance procedures and precautions are expensive, but ignorance costs even more.
   
2. Preventive and corrective maintenance should be performed by a single group of trained technical support personnel, under the immediate direction of the engineer responsible for the condition of the shielding windows.
   
3. Specific window maintenance operations, scheduled at regular time intervals and completed by competent maintenance personnel, can maintain high-quality viewing capabilities over many years of cell operation.
   
4. Proper procedures for cleaning and maintaining shielding windows are quite exacting. They are learned through understanding the physical nature of the glass and by practical experience. There are no shortcuts.

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Data and information contained in the tutorial was written by Dale A. Tobias, Premier Technology, Inc. and Hienz E. Hoffman and William G. Wash, Schott Glass Technologies, Inc. and may be reproduced only with written consent.

For information, contact Lyle Freeman
Vice President of Business Development
(208) 782-9129     lfreeman@ptius.net