Justification_for_the_replacement_of_6_ORTEC_X-Cooler_II_with_6_ORTEC_X-Cooler_III.pdf

Justification for the replacement of 6 ORTEC X-Cooler II with 6 ORTEC X-Cooler III

In 2009, the United States Department of Energy Radiological and Environmental Sciences Laboratory (RESL) had the Advanced Measurement Technologies (AMETEC)/ORTEC company convert 14 liquid nitrogen cooled high purity germanium detectors to electronically cooled after they won a competitive bid for the conversion. No other manufacture was able to meet the requirements of RESL for the electronically cooled conversion of its detectors. In 2012, AMETEC acquired the company that produced the electronic coolers used to cool the high purity germanium detectors to liquid nitrogen temperatures. Starting in 2015, AMETEC could no longer guarantee maintenance support on the electronic coolers that were older than five years, which all of RESL’s X-Cooler II units are. In 2015, RESL decided to change the $80K annual maintenance contract with AMETEC to a $60K true up contract with a $20K option, in order to start replacement of the aging X-Cooler II’s with X-Cooler III’s as they started to fail. The $20K true up option was not exercised in 2015 due to some confusion with the contract and by the start of the 2016 fiscal year RESL decided to suspend the entire $80K maintenance contract with AMETEC, as it was no longer cost effective, so that those funds could be used to purchase 4 X-Cooler III units that are supported now that AMETEC owns the company that produces them.

As of June 2016, 6 of RESL’s X-Cooler II units have failed and need to be replaced with AMETEC’s X-Cooler III units so that the RESL Gamma Ray Spectrometry System can be fully operational again and RESL would like to use $97K of the $100K that has been saved over 2015 and 2016 through discontinuing AMETEC’s maintenance contract in FY 2016 and not using the true up option in 2015.

RESL is taking a graded approach to understanding the failure rate of its equipment and has determined that the replacement of three electronic coolers per year at the cost of approximately $50K with $20K in reserve for repairs of detectors would be more beneficial than purchasing an $80K maintenance contract that would not repair the failed X-Cooler II electronic coolers. Exercising this graded approach for maintenance and equipment replacement for RESL’s Gamma Ray Spectrometry System would allow RESL to replace all of its electronic coolers on 4-5 year replacement schedule and allow RESL to maintain up to date electronic coolers and save approximately $10K per year and perhaps even more as AMETEC can now repair their own electronic coolers.

AMETEC is the only company that can provide these cooler due to the unique and proprietary nature of this equipment.

POC Justification for the replacement of 6 ORTEC X-Cooler II with 6 ORTEC X-Cooler III.

Guy Backstrom Radiochemist

DOE-ID RESL

(208) 526-0782