April 13, 2001
J. D. Monnier

Airpad Memo
===========

In anticipation of sending 4 pads to Specialty Components, a careful
assessment of all existing pads was performed. I will now report on the
results.

For each pad, the following test were done:

1. They were checked for air Leaks (Yes/NO)
2. They were checked for vibrations (Yes/No/Small) by supplying pad with
air and pushing down on a smooth granite surface.
3. All 10 pads were ranked based on visual inspection by JDMonnier, EPedretti,
and Marc Lacasse indepednently.
4. A collective rank was assigned based on average rank
    [in the final assessment, a few deep grooves were considered worse than
     many shallow grooves]

				  Ranks [1=best, 10=worst]
ID# (prev.loc)	Leak? 	Vibrate?  JDM  EP   ML      Collective
*00002 (2S)	No	YES	  9    10   9       10
*A0110 (1T)	No	No	  10   5    10      9
*A0111 (1T)	No	YES       7    6    8       8
00004 (1S)	No	No	  6    8    5       6/7
00005 (1S)      No      No        5    7    7       6/7
*A0109 (2T)	No	Small	  8    4    6       5
00003 (2S)	No	No	  4    9    3       4
IOTA1 (2T)    	No	No	  3    3    4       3
A0119 (1BIG)	No	No	  2    1    2       2
IOTA2 (2BIG)    No      No        1    2    1       1

[key for prev(ious).loc.(ation): (delay line #)(S=Side, T=Top, B=BIGtop)]
[Recall Table 1 was the problematic one]

As you can see there was a fair amount of agreement between the 3 judges,
and that 4 of the 5 worst pads were on Table 1, including one badly
vibrating top pad.

The asterisked-pads above are the ones we are sending for
refurbishment based on the following 3 criteria:
1) If the pad vibrated on the granite block, then refurbishment was
considered necessary.
2) Few deep grooves were considered worse than many light grooves
3) A0110 was on Table 1 which was giving us so much trouble, and so broke
the tie for 4th place.


I also suggest that Pads 00004, 00005 and 00003 are replaced with the nice
spares for next run since they are quite scratched, but nothing too deep.
[please inspect for yourself]