# Design and implementation of wire tension measurement system for MWPCs used in the STAR iTPC upgrade

## TL;DR

This paper presents a laser-based system for precise, automated wire tension measurement in MWPCs, crucial for the STAR experiment's TPC upgrade, ensuring high accuracy and efficiency.

## Contribution

It introduces a novel laser optical platform for automatic, high-precision wire tension measurement in MWPCs for the STAR-iTPC upgrade.

## Key findings

- High-precision wire tension measurements achieved
- System successfully scans entire wire plane automatically
- Prototype tested with promising results

## Abstract

The STAR experiment at RHIC is planning to upgrade the Time Projection Chamber which lies at the heart of the detector. We have designed an instrument to measure the tension of the wires in the multi-wire proportional chambers (MWPCs) which will be used in the TPC upgrade. The wire tension measurement system causes the wires to vibrate and then it measures the fundamental frequency of the oscillation via a laser based optical platform. The platform can scan the entire wire plane, automatically, in a single run and obtain the wire tension on each wire with high precision. In this paper, the details about the measurement method and the system setup will be described. In addition, the test results for a prototype MWPC to be used in the STAR-iTPC upgrade will be presented.