Giants for cryogenics

It takes 130 tonnes of liquid helium to cool down the LHC. In some situations—during a shutdown, for instance—this enormous volume of helium has to be removed from the machine and stored elsewhere. While this is a straightforward operation from the technical point of view, in logistical terms storing such a huge amount of the special element that is helium is far from trivial.

Until recently, CERN had the capacity for storing up to 52 tonnes of helium in gas form, i.e. 40% of the total needed by the LHC, using the storage tanks that can be seen in the vicinity of some of the experiment sites. As of the middle of June, two new storage tanks, among the largest in the world, are now located at Point 18. Each holding up to 128 000 litres of liquid helium, for a total of 28 tonnes between the two of them, the new tanks have increased CERN’s helium storage capacity by 20%, to reach 60%.

The goal is to have storage capacity at 100% by 2010, with the arrival of four more tanks of the same type. That storage will allow CERN to manage its helium supplies completely independently.