16 research outputs found

    An Investigation of Production Workers’ Performance Variations and the Potential Impact of Attitudes

    Get PDF
    In most manufacturing systems the contribution of human labour remains a vital element that affects overall performance and output. Workers’ individual performance is known to be a product of personal attitudes towards work. However, in current system design processes, worker performance variability is assumed to be largely insignificant and the potential impact of worker attitudes is ignored. This paper describes a field study that investigated the extent to which workers’ production task cycle times vary and the degree to which such variations are associated with attitude differences. Results show that worker performance varies significantly, much more than is assumed by contemporary manufacturing system designers and that this appears to be due to production task characteristics. The findings of this research and their implications are discussed

    Combined target-ion source unit for production of rare nuclides

    No full text
    International audienceA combined target-ion source unit (ionizing target) has been developed for the on-line production of radioactive single-charged ions. The target is able to withstand temperatures of up to 2500 °C and also acts as an ion source of surface, electron-beam, and laser ionizations. Using tantalum foil as a target material, the on-line combined target-ion source unit efficiency, which is the product of the ionization and release efficiencies, has been obtained for neutron-deficient isotopes of Eu, Gd, and Yb. These nuclides were ionized by the surface ionization inside a hot tungsten target container, holding tantalum foils as a target material. The results of the combined target-ion source unit use for on-line laser resonant ionization spectroscopy investigation of neutron-deficient Gd isotopes have been also presented. For neutron-rich isotopes produced from a high-density UC target, which were ionized by the surface ionization inside the target container, the ionization efficiency values have been obtained close to 100% for Rb and Cs and 10% for In. For Ag and Sn neutron-richisotopes, the values of the electron-beam ionization efficiency in the volume of the targetcontainer, correspondingly equal to 4% and 2%, have been obtained

    Development of uranium carbide targets for the on-line production of neutron-rich isotopes

    No full text
    ACCA number of on-line and off-line tests have been performed at the IRIS (investigation of radioactive isotopes at synchrocyclotron) facility in order to develop uranium carbide targets with a high density (11 g/cm3) for the on-line production of neutron-rich isotopes by fission of 238^{238}U. A 1 GeV proton beam was used to bombard two kinds of targets held at temperatures in the range of 1900–2100 °C. The first one was a target-ion source assembly slightly modified to withstand 3 months of continuous heating at a temperature of about 2050 °C. The second unit was of a new kind, where ionisation takes place in the target volume itself. A comparison of the on-line isotopic yields before and after heating for 3 months is here reported. The yields and release times of Rb, Cs and In are compared with the ones obtained from a standard reference target, as measured in previous experiments
    corecore