LEP Magnets Get a Second Lease of Life
Removed one minute, recycled the next! Around 900 yokes from the LEP dipole magnets have been re-used as building material.
906 yokes from the LEP dipole magnets have been incorporated in the foundations of the new Building 954, where they have been used to create the underfloor space and reinforcements.
The recycling of LEP is already under way. Over half of CERN's accelerator has been dismantled so far, and parts of its magnets are already beginning a new life: since 16 May, some of the LEP dipole magnet yokes have been re-used as building material.
The dipole yokes, the only ones of their kind, are made up of steel plates and layers of concrete sandwiched together, thus forming blocks of reinforced concrete. It would be a painstaking task to separate the basic materials for re-use, which led to the idea of using the yokes intact as reinforcements.
906 LEP yokes have gone into the foundations of the brand-new Building 954 on the Prévessin site. They have been used to build the underfloor space which will protect the building from rising damp. 'This means that we do not need to create a vapour barrier', explains Michael Poehler, ST project leader in charge of the operation. 'The yokes will also be used to reinforce the building's foundations'.
The installation of the yokes, which has been done in compliance with France's INB (Basic Nuclear Installation) regulations governing LEP dismantling, has taken six people a month to complete.
The new Building 954, which is 52 metres long and 33 metres wide, will be used to store the majority of LEP equipment with a very low level of radioactivity - corresponding to less than 2% of the total weight of the machine.
This first example of LEP magnet recycling is an illustration of the desire to re-use the accelerator components as much as possible. Approximately 2000 other yokes are to serve as shielding material for other civil engineering projects. Of the 30,000 tonnes of equipment from LEP, half is to be recycled.
