LHC Report: No beams but still busy

The LHC finished with beams for 2011 on Wednesday 7 December after a pretty good year of operation. The cryogenics team has emptied the magnets of helium for the winter technical stop and a full maintenance programme has started. The LHC is running long operational years at present with only a few short technical stops during operation with beam. This leaves very little time for much-needed maintenance and upgrades. Thus, the hardware teams involved have to take full advantage of the time available during the winter stop.

 

The Engineering Department is planning and coordinating the maintenance and repair activities for the whole accelerator complex. The list of planned interventions is truly impressive! There is a lot of work that involves the essential technical infrastructure systems (electricity, cooling, ventilation). Cryogenics have established a full programme aimed at maintaining and improving their already good level of availability. Other systems undergoing maintenance include: vacuum, power converters, RF, beam instrumentation, safety, collimation, beam dump, and injection.

The survey team will be targeting certain less stable areas of the ring. Measures to mitigate the effects of radiation on electronics in and around the tunnel include the installation of additional shielding in points 1 and 5, as well as the relocation of radiation-sensitive electronics to less exposed areas.

All of this work is essential for the LHC to continue its impressive progress come next March, when the beams will start up again.

by Mike Lamont for the LHC Team