A new design of fast wire scanner was installed in the CERN injector complex as part of the upgrades linked to the High-Luminosity LHC Project. Initial operations with these beams were good, but during the planned intensity ramp-up one early 2023, all four SPS scanners failed at the same time. An urgent program was put in place to understand and address this failure with experts from across the accelerator fields. Many measurements and simulations were performed and solutions implemented. This paper gives an overview of the issues seen, understanding and mitigations put in place to allow the instrument to perform at the maximum planned operational intensities.

All wires of the four CERN SPS rotational wirescanners broke when increasing the beam intensity towards the target for the LHC Injector Upgrade in 2023. Impedance and thermal studies were immediately launched, with simulations and measurements indicating that beam induced heating from resonant modes on the thin wire could be sufficient to cause these breakages. Mitigation measures to displace electromagnetic losses away from the wire were proposed and implemented. This allowed a much higher beam intensity to be reached, close to the LIU target. Simulations now predict that the modified wirescanners can sustain the LIU beam parameters.