CERN, Geneva
Nominal beam parameters at 7TeV/c will only be reached after some years of operation, with each proton beam having a stored energy of 360MJ. However, a small fraction of this energy is sufficient to damage accelerator equipment or experiments in case of uncontrolled beam loss. The correct functioning of the machine protection systems is vital during the different operational phases already for initial operation. When operating the complex magnet system, with and without beam, safe operation relies on the protection and interlock systems for the superconducting circuits. For safe injection and transfer of beam from SPS to LHC, transfer line parameters are monitored, beam absorbers must be in the correct position and the LHC must be ready to accept beam. At the end of a fill and in case of failures beams must be properly extracted onto the dump blocks, for some failures within less than few hundred microseconds. Safe operation requires many systems: beam dumping system, beam interlocks, beam instrumentation, equipment monitoring, collimators and absorbers, etc. We describe the commissioning of the LHC machine protection system and the experience during the initial operation.
CERN, Geneva
The proposed Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) is based on a two-beam acceleration scheme. The energy of high intensity, low energy drive beams is extracted and transferred to low intensity, high energy main beams. Direct ionization loss by the beam particles is the principal damage mechanism. The total charge gives a single drive beam-train a damage potential that is two orders of magnitude above the level causing structural damage in copper. For the main beam, it is the extreme charge density due to the microscopic beam size that gives it a damage potential of four orders of magnitude above the safe level. The machine protection system has to cope with a wide variety of failures, from real time failures (RF breakdowns, kickers misfiring), to slow equipment failures, to beam instabilities (caused by e.g. temperature drifts, slow ground motions). This paper discusses the baseline for the CLIC machine protection system which is based on passive, active and permit based protection. As the permit based protection depends on the measured performance of the previous pulse, the bootstrap procedure with safe beams and stepwise increase in beam intensities, is also discussed.
CERN, Geneva
During the sector 3-4 incident, the two apertures of the 3 km long cryogenic vacuum sectors of the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) were brutally vented to helium. A systematic visual inspection of the beam pipe revealed the presence of soot, metallic debris and super insulation debris. After four month of cleaning, the beam vacuum system was recovered. This paper describes the tools and methodologies developed during this period, the achieved performances and discusses possible upgrades.