Please use the emergency exit

TL;DRAbstract

In order to minimise the consequences of an incident like the one that occurred in 2008, the LHC has been fitted with safety valves. A total of 1,344 of these valves, whose function is to release the helium in the event of over-pressure, will be in place by the end of LS1. The cutting operation is carried out using a circular saw designed at CERN. This photo was taken in Building 181 during training. Let's go back five years. It’s 2008 and an electrical incident has just caused a helium leak in LHC Sector 3-4. 30-tonne magnets moved half a metre as a result of the over-pressure. What did the ensuing investigation find? A defective electrical connection between two magnets caused a short-circuit, provoking an electrical arc, which in turn led to a leakage of liquid helium into the insulation vacuum of the cryostats containing the magnet cold masses. While helium is liquid at a temperature of 1.9 K (inside the magnets), it becomes gaseous as soon as the temperature exceeds 4.2 K (outside

Chat with Paper

AI Agents for this Paper