Performance study of large-area glass resistive plate chambers with different spacer configurations

Abstract

Optimization of spacer and gas distribution inside glass resistive plate chamber (RPC) is reported. Simulation studies demonstrate improvements on the gas flow velocity homogeneity and lower vorticity inside the gas chamber. The optimized spacer configuration (76 spacers) decreases the number of spacers by $24\%$ compared to the original design (100 spacers), thus helps significantly reduce the non-active or low-efficiency area caused by spacers while maintaining similar deformation uniformity of the electrodes. Large area glass RPCs with 1x1 m$^2$ size using two types of spacer configurations are constructed and tested with cosmic muons events. The muon detection efficiencies for RPCs are greater than $95\%$.