Science

CERN confirms bad electrical connection for LHC

by William Atkins

Saturday, 18 October 2008

CERN officials confirmed on October 16, 2008, that a large helium leak within the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest particle accelerator, was caused by a faulty electrical connection between two of its magnets.

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The bad connection caused serious mechanical damage in sector 3-4 of the LHC tunnel, along with the release of helium into the tunnel from the magnet cold mass.

The CERN media release “CERN releases analysis of LHC incident” states, “Proper safety procedures were in force, the safety systems performed as expected, and no one was put at risk.

It adds, "Sufficient spare components are in hand to ensure that the LHC is able to restart in 2009, and measures to prevent a similar incident in the future are being put in place.”

CERN director general Robert Aymar states, “This incident was unforeseen, but I am now confident that we can make the necessary repairs, ensure that a similar incident can not happen in the future and move forward to achieving our research objectives.”

A summary of the analysis states, “On 19 September 2008, during powering tests of the main dipole circuit in Sector 3-4 of the LHC, a fault occurred in the electrical bus connection in the region between a dipole and a quadrupole, resulting in mechanical damage and release of helium from the magnet cold mass into the tunnel.”

The rest of the summary, in much detail, is available at the above Web page.

The home Web page of CERN's Large Hadron Collider is http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/.

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