William Atkins
Friday, 01 May 2009 22:57
Science -
Energy
Page 1 of 2
The final replacement magnet was lowered into the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) on April 30, 2009. The event is an important milestone in its repair because further work will be concentrated underground, primarily interconnecting the magnets so the LHC can be restarted in the last quarter of 2009.
Major repairs have been ongoing for CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) when its LHC operations were abruptly halted in September 2008, just as the accelerator was being started up for the first time.
On Friday, September 12, 2008, the LHC malfunctioned during its initial startup. The problem caused many of the magnets in Sector 3-4 to be damaged.
Fifty-three magnets were removed from Sector 3-4. Sixteen were removed because of minimal damage. They were fixed and have been returned to the Sector.
Another thirty-seven were damage more extensively and had to be replaced with other magnets. These damaged ones will be eventually refurnbished and used for spares.
Additional information on the malfunction is found on the September 21, 2008 iTWire article “
LHC atom smasher temporarily smashed.”
According to the
CERN website,
“The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a gigantic scientific instrument near Geneva, where it spans the border between Switzerland and France about 100 m [meters] underground. It is a particle accelerator used by physicists to study the smallest known particles – the fundamental building blocks of all things. It will revolutionise our understanding, from the minuscule world deep within atoms to the vastness of the Universe.”
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