Aperture Restriction Localisation in the LHC Arcs using an RF Mole and the LHC Beam Position Measurement System

Ensuring that the two 27km beam pipes of the LHC do not contain aperture restrictions is of utmost importance. Most of the ring is composed of continuous cryostats, so any intervention to remove aperture restrictions when the machine is at its operating temperature of 1.9K will require a substantial amount of time. On warming-up the first cooled sector, several of the sliding contacts which provide electrical continuity for the beam image current between successive sections of the vacuum chamber were found to have buckled into the beam pipe. This led to a search for a technique to verify the integrity of a complete LHC arc (~3km) before any subsequent cool-down. In this paper the successful results from using a polycarbonate ball fitted with a 40MHz RF transmitter are presented. Propulsion of the ball is achieved by sucking filtered air through the entire arc, while its progress is traced every 54m via the LHC beam position measurement system which is auto-triggered by the RF transmitter on passage of the ball. Reflectometry at frequencies in the 4-8 GHz range can cover the gaps between beam position monitors and could therefore be used to localise a ball blocked by an obstacle

High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC): Technical Design Report

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is one of the largest scientific instruments ever built. Since opening up a new energy frontier for exploration in 2010, it has gathered a global user community of about 9000 scientists working in fundamental particle physics and the physics of hadronic matter at extreme temperature and density. To sustain and extend its discovery potential, the LHC will need a major upgrade in the 2020s. This will increase its instantaneous luminosity (rate of collisions) by a factor of five beyond the original design value and the integrated luminosity (total number of collisions) by a factor ten. The LHC is already a highly complex and exquisitely optimised machine so this upgrade must be carefully conceived and will require new infrastructures (underground and on surface) and over a decade to implement. The new configuration, known as High Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC), relies on a number of key innovations that push accelerator technology beyond its present limits. Among these are cutting-edge 11–12 Tesla superconducting magnets, compact superconducting cavities for beam rotation with ultra-precise phase control, new technology and physical processes for beam collimation and 100 metre-long high-power superconducting links with negligible energy dissipation, all of which required several years of dedicated R&D effort on a global international level. The present document describes the technologies and components that will be used to realise the project and is intended to serve as the basis for the detailed engineering design of the HL-LHC

Radiation Resistance testing of commercial components for the new SPS Beam Position Measurement System

A new Front-End (FE) electronics is under development for the SPS Multi Orbit POsition System (MOPOS). To cover the large dynamic range of beam intensities (70 dB) to be measured in the SPS, the beam position monitor signals are processed using logarithmic amplifiers. They are then digitized locally and transmitted via optical fibers over long distances (up to 1 km) to VME acquisition boards located in surface buildings. The FE board is designed to be located in the SPS tunnel, where it must withstand radiation doses of up to 100 Gy per year. Analogue components, such as Logarithmic Amplifiers (LA), ADC-Drivers (ADC-D) and Voltage Regulators (VR), have been tested at PSI (Paul Scherrer Institute) for radiation hardness, while several families of bidirectional SFP, both single-fiber and double-fiber, have been tested at both PSI and CNRAD. This paper gives a description of the overall system architecture and presents the results of the radiation hardness tests in detail

Collimation system post-LS1: status and commissioning

The LHC collimation system has undergone an important upgrade during LS1. A total of 32 collimator installations are taking place to consolidate and improve the Run 1 system. This includes 18 new collimators with embedded beam positions monitors (BPMs), additional physics debris collimators, additional passive absorbers and re-installation or displacement of existing collimators. This paper summarizes the post-LS1 collimation layout, highlighting the expected gains from each modification, and the readiness of the new collimation hardware for commissioning without and with beam. Special emphasis is devoted to the new software for the control and configuration of the BPM colli-mators. A proposal for the necessary beam conditions during collimation alignment and validation with loss maps at 6.5 TeV is also discussed, including a strategy for the machine protection aspects. A list of early machine development studies is proposed

Understanding particle dynamics in erosion testers: a review of influences of particle movement on erosion test conditions

An understanding of particle dynamics is important when determining material erosive wear in any erosion tester, because particle impact conditions are primarily influenced by particle acceleration. Abetter understanding of particle dynamics in the testers will aid the control of erosion test conditions and therefore improve the accuracy of measurement. In this paper, particle dynamics in the two most popular erosion testers, the centrifugal erosion tester and the gas-blast erosion tester, has been discussed in detail. Mechanisms of particle acceleration in the two types of testerswere explored and computational models of particle dynamics were described briefly. A review of the experimental determination of important characteristics of particle dynamics (such as particle velocity, particle trajectory, particle dispersion and particle rotation) showed how they influenced particle movement and therefore the particle impact conditions. In addition, comparison of the particle dynamics in the two types of erosion testers showed that differences of particle acceleration may lead to significantly different results at identical pre-set test conditions. It may be concluded that it is not possible to directly compare the results obtained in different types of erosion testers even under notionally identical test conditions