Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Chamonix Summary -- More about the September Incident

Today I'll continue with some cool photos from the Chamonix summary (as I discussed last week).

The first speaker had another photo from the September 19th incident, describing that of the 595 MJ (595,000,000 Joules) of energy stored in the magnets, half was dissipated in the arc that caused the damage:



(photo from slide 7 of the first summary talk). A typical surge protector in your house might be able to absorb and dissipate on the order of 1000 Joules of energy.

And, along with more info about the damage, we get some more photos of repairs... for example, a "jumper" repair on part of the damaged sector:



And remember the how the soot in the beam pipe needed to be cleaned? Here's a before (left) and after (right):







and a photo of the "Q-tip" (ok, they call it a foam plug) they use to clean the beam pipe...



first dipped in alcohol, then dry.

If this is the kind of thing that floats your boat, you might want to check out the whole video of the Chamonix summary. Beware of the accelerator jargon ... here's some help (and for my own future reference; corrections welcome in the comments):

BIS = beam interlock system
DFB = electrical distribution box
MCI = maximum credible incident
MLI = multilayer insulation
MO = multipole
MPS = machine protection system
MQ = skew quadrupole
QPS = quench protection system
QRL = cryogenic pipeline
SEU = single event upset
SSS = short straight section

A bientôt!

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