CERN Accelerating science

The progress since the last collaboration meeting in October 2021 has been impressive and the project passed several key milestones for the project implementation in spite of the turbulences caused by Covid-19 and the crisis in Ukraine.

The HL-LHC Project is entering the series construction phase and therefore most of the collaboration agreements are now focused on the production of final elements that will have their destination in the LHC tunnel and in the set of operational spares.

In May 2022, HL-LHC AUP project successfully completed an endurance test on an individual magnet (MQXFA05) in vertical position.

The magnet program has reached several milestones since the last annual meeting: in the following we summarize the main achievements of our collaborations.

CERN, STFC Daresbury Laboratory (STFC-DL) and Lancaster University have collaboratively designed a pre-series cryomodule to house 2 “RF Dipole” type Crab Cavities, with the aim of assembling the module at Daresbury Laboratory and testing at CERN in 2023.

In the framework of HL-LHC AUP in the US, last year two prototype RF Dipole Crab Cavities manufactured in Italy by Zanon Research & Innovation were validated successfully at FNAL through cold tests at 2K.

The HL-LHC WP5 activities started in LS2 with some important upgrades in preparation to the full deployment of HL-LHC in LS3.

This collaboration concerns the cryostat devices that will house and connect the HTS REBCO current leads to the MgB2 Superconducting Links powering the HL-LHC magnets.

The 8th Beam Gas Curtain (BGC) Collaboration Meeting was held at CERN in early April.

The HL-LHC IT String is a major, intermediate milestone for the HL-LHC project ahead of the installation of the first cold powering systems in the LHC tunnel during LS3.

The civil engineering works is progressing well. The underground works, including the metallic structures, have been fully completed at Point 1 in October 2021 and Point 5 in February 2022.

The High-Luminosity Project is finalising the transition from the prototyping phase into full construction mode and most of the activities in view of the series production for the HL-LHC hardware have already started across all work-packages.

Following a very successful exercise in 2021, CERNs Council has requested the Cost & schedule reviews of the HL-LHC project to be held annually, a lighter edition alternating every second year with a full project review.