Frédérick Bordry: The LHC first and foremost

The new TE Department is focussed on getting the LHC back in operation. This task is being tackled even as the Department is adapting its activities for the LHC operational phase.

Frédérick Bordry can be forgiven for having hoped for a quieter take-over but he had to hit the ground running. His appointment as the head of the new TE Department was approved by the Council just one day before the 19 September incident in Sector 3-4 that brought the LHC to an abrupt halt. Despite the shock, Frédérick Bordry, together with his entire Department, came out fighting. "It’s during moments of crisis that you really learn to appreciate people. Everyone pitched in to help," he recalls. "I was impressed by the commitment shown by people at all levels."

All eyes are on the TE Department, whose activities are almost entirely focused on getting the LHC restarted and consolidating the accelerator. An enormous task, under a very tight deadline, but the new Department head is confident of success. "The start-up on 10 September proved that the machine works, and that its foundation is solid. But there is no margin for error," emphasises Bordry. "That is why we have to take all the precautions and address every last problem. With the new diagnostic tool we have developed, we can improve machine safety considerably, by detecting abnormal resistances in the order of a nano-ohm."

The new system for detecting quenches, consisting of 6 500 electronic cards to be installed in the tunnel, is the result of a record-breaking development effort. The Department needs help with the installation and will be making use of the wave of solidarity across CERN. He is grateful to report that teams from the PH Department will help test the new cards. The PH physicists will also help by re-analysing all the data taken during magnet cold testing in SM18. Scrutinising this pre-installation data again will allow any signs of an anomalous resistance to be spotted.

These immense efforts have had to be deployed at the very moment that the 390 staff member-strong TE Department is setting itself up and integrating several new teams. Bordry explains: "Our mission is to provide all the specialised technologies both for the accelerators and the detectors. The purpose of the restructuring is to improve communication, tailor the structure more to the objectives and re-establish the balance between departments."

In addition to the groups in charge of the specialised technologies for CERN’s accelerators and detectors, Bordry has made a point of setting up a group responsible for machine protection and electrical integrity. As he says, "This group has to check the integrity and serviceability of the whole system. We have a lot of expertise at CERN in component design, but we have to become better in the area of interfaces and systems. That was highlighted by the 19 September incident."

The new teams of the TE Department are also absorbing another major transformation: the transition from the construction phase to the exploitation phase. "We are fortunate at CERN in that we can follow a technology from design right through to exploitation," says Bordry. "Exploitation is sometimes viewed as less exciting than pure design work. I would disagree. During exploitation, the teams can follow the components they developed and work on improving their reliability and performance. The experience gained is also important for optimising future designs."

Looking beyond the Department, the biggest change in the CERN organisational structure, in his view, is that the three technical departments have been brought together in one sector, under Steve Myers. "It’s a new philosophy," he stresses. "In this way, we are working in genuine cooperation." Two sector-level committees take the major technical decisions: the LHC Machine Committee (LMC) and the LHC Injectors and Experimental Facilities Committee (IEFC). All the group leaders from the sector’s departments are invited to participate in the meetings of these two committees.

Although the LHC has top priority, the Department is involved in numerous other projects. These include the construction of Linac 4 and the new focusing magnets, as part of the SLHC project; studies for the collider, CLIC; and studies for the PS2 and SPL, to replace the PS and PS injector respectively. TE also has consolidation projects. For the time being these involve mainly repairing the PS and SPS magnets and replacing the power converters, including the main converter of the PS. "However, the basic infrastructure has been neglected," explains Bordry. In addition, an LHC consolidation programme has to be put in place. Thus, the stock of magnets and spare parts, largely depleted by the repairs to Sector 3-4, has to be replenished.

Despite the urgency of the LHC work, the transformations in the Department and the projects for the future, Frédérick Bordry is as easy-going as ever. He even finds the time to visit his teams, something he calls "walking management". "I wish that I had more time to spend meeting people," he acknowledges. "But for the past two months I haven’t stopped an instant." But he’s not complaining. Bordry likes to quote Jean Monnet, one of the founders of the European Union: "I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist. I am determined."

Frédérick Bordry’s CV in brief

Frédérick Bordry is a graduate of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Electronique, d’Electrotechnique, d’Informatique et d’Hydraulique in Toulouse, France, with a PhD in engineering and another in science from the Institut Nationale Polytechnique, also in Toulouse. He spent the first ten years of his career teaching and conducting research at these two institutes. In 1981, he was appointed senior lecturer at the Institut Nationale Polytechnique. He came to CERN in 1986, joining the group working on power converters for LEP. In 1988 he moved to the Operations Group as engineer in charge of the SPS and LEP. In 1994, the year that the LHC was approved, he joined the Converter Group as the head of design for power converters for the LHC. He was appointed leader of the Power Converter Group in 2002, a position he held until last December. In 2008 he was also the deputy head of the Accelerators and Beams Department. As of 1 January 2009 he is the Head of the Technology Department.