Re: NMR room security/safety

George Sukenick (g-sukenick@ski.mskcc.org)
Wed, 26 Nov 1997 12:03:20 -0500

>We are just moving back into a newly renovated building and we're haveing
>problems with people wandering into our NMR room.

A Half height wall (with door & snap locks) and black and yellow tape
might help...(But then, the contruction people have to
come to put that in.)

I've found that a number of workers don't
realize that the magnet is never shut off. A Big sign to that
effect (as well as pricing should someone request that it
be shut down :-) Be generous in the estimate for
cryogens, engineer cost, loss of research time (commercial rates!
now who did that survey?)) You broke it, you buy it.
Post your evacuation plan in the event of a quench
(which COULD happen at any time...)

Seriously,
The cheaper and easier way to demark the area would be with
white plastic fence posts and yellow/black plastic chain link,
with an area of the chain set low so researchers can step
over it. (I can supply vendor name if desired)
There is also black yellow zebra tape for the floor.

After I put the chain link in, at least now most workers ask
whether its safe to come to the area.

It might be useful to talk to the head of your facilities management
about the dangers that the workers are putting themselves into
(prosthetics, pacemakers, credit cards, watchs, potential
loss of tools.....the loss of experimental data due to their
abuse and the financial danger to facilities if,
for example, someone dropped their little allen wrench and it
went into the bore or >>>clang<<< monkey wrench against the side...)

Complain (first find the right person
to complain to....) whenever unauthorized personnel is
doing unauthorized (by you) work in the vicinity of the magnets.