Qualification of Eco-Friendly Gas Mixture for Avalanche Mode Operation of RPC

Abstract

Numerical qualification of an eco-friendly alternative gas mixture for avalanche mode operation of Resistive Plate Chambers is the soul of this work. To identify the gas mixture, a numerical model developed elsewhere by the authors has been first established by comparing the simulated figure of merits (efficiency and streamer probability) with the experimental data for the gas mixture used in INO-ICAL. Then it has been used to simulate the same properties of a gas mixture based on argon, carbon di-oxide and nitrogen, identified as potential replacement by studying its different properties. Efficacy of this eco-friendly gas mixture has been studied by comparing the simulated result with the standard gas mixture used in INO-ICAL as well as with experimental data of other eco-friendly hydrofluorocarbon (HFO1234ze) based potential replacements. To increase the efficacy of the proposed gas mixture, studies of the traditional way (addition of a little amount of SF 6 ) and an alternative approach (exploring the option of high-end electronics) were carried out.

Study of streamer development in Resistive Plate Chamber

“…This framework once validated would be useful for qualifying any proposed eco-friendly gas mixture and identifying the operating regime for avalanche mode performance of the RPC which is a prime requirement of the ICAL setup. Some preliminary results in this regard are available in [3].…”