The quality control tests for the RPCs of the OPERA experiment

Before the installation in the OPERA experiment, bakelite Resistive Plate Chambers are subjected to a chain of quality tests performed at the Gran Sasso Laboratories. Mechanical properties are first investigated in a fully automatized station, measuring the gas leakage and checking the gluing of the internal spacers. Then electrical properties are tested: current vs. voltage characteristics are measured both with pure argon and with gas mixture filling; moreover the short term behavior of the current is monitored. Finally the response uniformity is tested, measuring the efficiency on the entire detector surface at cosmic rays fluxes. In this paper we present the test chain and the results on a large set of chambers. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.