First Year of Operations in the HiRadMat facility

HiRadMat (High Irradiation to Materials) is a new facility at CERN constructed in 2011. It is designed to provide a test area where the effect of high intensity pulsed beams on materials or accelerator component assemblies can be studied. The HiRadMat facility is situated in the former West Area Neutrino Facility (WANF) target tunnel and is about 35 m below ground. It takes the fast extracted beam from the long straight section LSS6 of SPS, the same used for the TI2 injection line to LHC. For 2012, the first year of operations of the facility, 9 experiments were scheduled and completed data-taking successfully. The experience gained in operating this unique facility, along with highlights of the experiments and the instrumentation developed for online measurements are reported

Introduction to the Technical Galleries Consolidation Program

The Technical Galleries Consolidation Program focuses on the remedy of existing issues and on the refurbishment of the galleries’ conditions and their related infrastructure to the extent reasonably possible. Drinking and firefighting water, as well as compressed air lines, are among the main priorities due to the bad conditions of the piping and the need to improve water quality. These networks have been enlarged gradually or partially discontinued depending on the needs. It is therefore necessary to have a complete review of all the usage and consumptions to define the new configuration and their appropriate dimensions. Dismantling and installation activities will be done by geographical areas and will follow a sequence to minimize disruption of services in the CERN complex. In addition, the Project will also aim at adapting the services to the present needs of the sites and at improving safety related aspects. This paper presents an overview of this consolidation with a particular focus on Cooling and Ventilation networks

Chapter 1: Introduction, scope, and schedule

The East Area of the CERN Proton Synchrotron has served the physics community for over 50 years and remains extremely popular and necessary, among other things, to complete full calibration over a large energy spectrum of the detectors to be installed in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments according to the needs of the upgrade for the High Luminosity LHC. In addition, physics programs like CLOUD, and test facilities such as IRRAD and CHARM are based on a reliable and easily maintainable East Area. This report summarizes the various detailed studies completed from 2016 to 2019

Chapter 2: East Area renovationMotivations and general description

This chapter gives a general description of the East Area before and after Long Shutdown 2 (LS2)

Innovative ICP-MS/MS Method To Determine the 135^{135}Cs/137^{137}Cs Ratio in Low Activity Environmental Samples

International audienceThe $^{135}$Cs/$^{137}$Cs isotopic ratio is a powerful tool for tracing the origin of radioactive contamination. Since the Fukushima accident, this ratio has been measured by mass spectrometry in several highly contaminated environmental matrices mainly collected near nuclear accident exclusion zones and former nuclear test areas. However, few data were reported at $^{137}$Cs environmental levels (<1 kBq kg$^{–1}$). This is explained by the occurrence of analytical challenges related to the very low radiocesium content at the environmental level with the large presence of mass interferences, making $^{135}$Cs and $^{137}$Cs measurements difficult. To overcome these difficulties, a highly selective procedure for Cs extraction/separation combined with an efficient mass spectrometry measurement must be applied on a quantity of ca. 100 g of soil. In the current research, an innovative inductively coupled plasma-tandem mass spectrometry (ICP-MS/MS) method has been developed for the $^{135}$Cs/$^{137}$Cs ratio measurement in low activity environmental samples. The use of ICP-MS/MS led to a powerful suppression of $^{135}$Cs and $^{137}$Cs interferences by introducing N$_2$O, He, and, for the first time, NH$_3$, into the collision-reaction cell. By adjusting the flow rates of these gases, the best compromise between a maximum signal in Cs and an effective interference elimination was achieved allowing a high Cs sensitivity of more than 1.10$^5$ cps/(ng g$^{–1}$) and low background levels at $m/z$ 135 and 137 lower than 0.6 cps. The accuracy of the developed method was successfully verified by analyzing two certified reference materials (IAEA-330 and IAEA-375) commonly used in the literature as validation samples and three sediment samples collected in the Niida River catchment (Japan) impacted by the Fukushima fallout

East Area Celebration

At the end of the guided tours, the main challenges of this renovation project as well as the results obtained will be presented inside Bldg 157. Needed: * Covid Certificate or negative test * Closed shoes * Personal Dosimeter * Proximeter * Mas

Erosional response to land abandonment in rural areas of Western Europe during the Anthropocene: A case study in the Massif-Central, France

International audienceAbandonment of agricultural land is widespread in many developed countries. These surfaces are projected to increase significantly worldwide during the 21th century. Identifying potential relationships between land abandonment and soil erosion dynamics over the long term (100 years) is therefore essential for predicting the environmental consequences of this extensive land use change. Accordingly, sediment cores were collected in two highland catchments of central France in order to reconstruct the change of sediment delivery during the last century. The results showed a substantial decline (71–78%) of rural population in both sites since 1900. This decrease occurred simultaneously with a sharp decline (85–95%) of the surface of arable land: previously cultivated areas were mainly converted into forests as the result of natural and anthropogenic processes. Consequently, sediment deliveries significantly decreased (75–99%) in both catchments. These trends were nevertheless interrupted by the implementation of afforestation works between 1945 and 1970 in one of the catchments. During these works, erosion rates increased three-fold because of extensive soil disturbance, and sediment delivery stabilized only 15 years after the onset of these management operations. Overall, this study demonstrates the long-term effect of land abandonment on soil erosion, which supplements the more widely reported acceleration trend of soil erosion because of agricultural intensification

CERN’s East Experimental Area: A New Modern Physics Facility

CERN’s East Area has hosted a variety of fixed-target experiments since the 1950s, using four beamlines from the Proton Synchrotron (PS). Over the past 4 years, the experimental area - CERN’s second largest - has undergone a complete makeover. New instrumentation and beamline configuration have improved the precision of data collection, and new magnets and power convertors have drastically reduced the area’s energy consumption. This article will summarize the major challenges encountered for the design of the renovated beamlines and for the preparation and test of the components. The infrastructure was carefully fitted resulting in a very smooth beam commissioning, the details of which will also be presented along with the restart of physics in the second half of 2021. With the return of the beams in the accelerator complex, the East Area’s experiments have taken physics measurements again and the facility’s central role in the modern physics landscape has been restored

Study of the energy savings resulting from the East Area renovation

CERN’s East Experimental Area, situated on the Swiss side of the Meyrin site, with its four beamlines, has served physics for more than 40 years. As the building and equipment are reaching their end of life, a thorough consolidation project has been initiated in order to provide many more years of reliable operation. This article addresses the different proposed solutions to reduce significantly the energy consumption of the East Area. It outlines the methodology applied to estimate as precisely as possible the future attained energy savings, which will result in an estimated reduction of approximately 80% in electricity usage (from 11 GWh to 2 GWh per year) and of approximately 65% in gas usage for heating purpose (from 3 GWh to 1 GWh per year)