Commissioning of the cryogenics of the LHC long straight sections

The LHC is made of eight circular arcs interspaced with eight Long Straight Sections (LSS). Most powering interfaces to the LHC are located in these sections where the particle beams are focused and shaped for collision, cleaning and acceleration. The LSSs are constituted of several unique cryogenic devices and systems like electrical feed-boxes, standalone superconducting magnets, superconducting links, RF cavities and final focusing superconducting magnets. This paper presents the cryogenic commissioning and the main results obtained during the first operation of the LHC Long Straight Sections.Comment: 8 pp. Cryogenic Engineering Conference and International Cryogenic Materials Conference, 28 Jun - 2 Jul 2009. Tucson, Arizon

Design, Production and First Commissioning Results of the Electrical Feedboxes of the LHC

A total of 44 CERN designed cryogenic electrical feedboxes are needed to power the LHC superconducting magnets. The feedboxes include more than 1000 superconducting circuits fed by high temperature superconductor and conventional current leads ranging from 120 A to 13 kA. In addition to providing the electrical current to the superconducting circuits, they also ensure specific mechanical and cryogenic functions for the LHC. The paper focuses on the main design aspects and related production operations and gives an overview of specific technologies employed. Results of the commissioning of the feedboxes of the first LHC sectors are presented

Extending the Use of HTS to Feeders in Superconducting Magnet Systems

Following the successful adoption of high temperature superconductors (HTS) in over a thousand current leads that will feed 3 MA from warm to cold in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the use of HTS has been generally accepted as suitable technology for the design of efficient leads feeding cryo-magnets. We now consider the extension of the technology to the interconnection of strings of superconducting magnets and their connection to feed-boxes through which the excitation current is fed. It is proposed to use HTS material for this application instead of low-temperature superconductor or normal-conducting material. The implications of adopting this technology are discussed with regard to the choice of materials, highlighting the differences with more conventional schemes. Examples are given of how this approach could be applied to the consolidation and upgrade of the LHC

LHC Interaction Region Upgrade: Phase I

The LHC is starting operation with beam in 2008. The primary goal of CERN and the LHC community is to ensure that the collider is operated efficiently, maximizing its physics reach, and to achieve the nominal performance in the shortest term. Since several years the community has been discussing the directions for upgrading the experiments, in particular ATLAS and CMS, the LHC machine and the CERN proton injector complex. A well substantiated and coherent scenario for the first phase of the upgrade, which is foreseen in 2013, is now approved by CERN Council. In this paper, we present the goals and the proposed conceptual solution for the Phase-I upgrade of the LHC interaction regions. This phase relies on the mature Nb-Ti superconducting magnet technology, with the target of increasing the luminosity by a factor of 2-3 with respect to the nominal luminosity of 1034 cm-2s-1, while maximising the use of the existing infrastructure

Update of the LHC Arc Cryostat Systems Layouts and Integration

Since the LHC Conceptual Design report's publication in October 1995 [1], and subsequent evolutions [2], the LHC Arc Cryostat System has undergone recently a number of significant changes, dictated by the natural evolution of the project. Most noteworthy are the recent decisions to route the large number of auxiliary circuits feeding the arc corrector magnets in a separate tube placed inside the cryostat with connections to the magnets every half-cell. Further decisions concern simplification of the baseline vacuum and cryogenic sectorization, the finalization of the design of the arc cryogenic modules and the layout of the arc electrical distribution feedboxes. The most recent features of the highly intricate cryogenics, magnetic, vacuum and electrical distribution systems of the LHC are presente

A Quench Detection and Monitoring System for Superconducting Magnets at Fermilab

A quench detection system was developed for protecting and monitoring the superconducting solenoids for the Muon-to-Electron Conversion Experiment (Mu2e) at Fermilab. The quench system was designed for a high level of dependability and long-term continuous operation. It is based on three tiers: Tier-I, FPGA-based Digital Quench Detection (DQD); Tier-II, Analog Quench Detection (AQD); and Tier-3, the quench controls and data management system. The Tier-I and Tier-II are completely independent and fully redundant systems. The Tier-3 system is based on National Instruments (NI) C-RIO and provides the user interface for quench controls and data management. It is independent from Tiers I & II. The DQD provides both quench detection and quench characterization (monitoring) capability. Both DQD and AQD have built-in high voltage isolation and user programmable gains and attenuations. The DQD and AQD also includes user configured current dependent thresholding and validation times. A 1st article of the three-tier system was fully implemented on the new Fermilab magnet test stand for the HL-LHC Accelerator Up-grade Project (AUP). It successfully provided quench protection and monitoring (QPM) for a cold superconducting bus test in November 2020. The Mu2e quench detection design has since been implemented for production testing of the AUP magnets. A detailed description of the system along with results from the AUP superconducting bus test will be presented

The Special LHC Interconnections: Technologies, Organization and Quality Control

In addition to the standard interconnections (IC) of the continuous cryostat of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), there exists a variety of special ones related to specific components and assemblies, such as cryomagnets of the insertion regions, electrical feedboxes and superconducting links. Though they are less numerous, their specificities created many additional IC types, requiring a larger variety of assembly operations and quality control techniques, keeping very high standards of quality. Considerable flexibility and adaptability from all the teams involved (CERN staff, collaborating institutes, contractors) were the key points to ensure the success of this task. This paper first describes the special IC and presents the employed technologies which are generally adapted from the standard work. Then, the organization adopted for this non-repetitive work is described. Examples of non-conformities that were resolved are also discussed. Figures of merit in terms of quality and productivity are given and compared with standard IC wor