Several members of the HL-LHC Project Office visited the Q1-TAXS region mock-up built by the WP8 team in their workshop (bldg. 867/R-K75) for HL-LHC machine experiment interface studies.

At the tunnel ends, the last inner focusing quadrupole magnet ("Q1"), reaches into the massive forward shielding of the experiments. These form the end of the tunnel through which only the vacuum chamber and the TAS (Target Absorber Secondary) absorber pass towards the caverns.

The described regions are high radioactive areas and after the restart of LHC operation in the HiLumi era, carrying out work on equipment will be extremely difficult. Apart from the radiation constraints, access is done through a zig-zagging path in close proximity of activated equipment, and the space between the end of the HL-LHC Inner Triplets and the tunnel ends leave only about 500 mm of space between Q1 and TAXS chamber flanges. New components need to be tested and all systems must be designed and installed free of maintenance. All this include various engineering challenges for the design and the installation teams.

The mock-up simulates the last three meters of the HL-LHC tunnel environment, left and right before ATLAS and CMS caverns, and will allow the diverse experts to test the integration, and practice the installation of their components on a real-size simulator. The mock-up can be converted between ATLAS and CMS within a few hours to map the situation of all four tunnel environments. The Q1 module or any other component may easily be removed or reconfigured to repeat or simulate another setup in the installation process.

From an integration point of view, the mock-up enhances synergies when discussing the layout of tunnel installations, planning and work procedures for the Q1-TAXS region.

The Q1-TAXS region mock-up is ready for use! In a next step, the WP8 team will contact the different work packages and equipment responsible to install their various systems just as placeholders, as prototypes or in their final version into the mock-up so that the planned test series and simulations can start.

By Oliver Boettcher, WP8 Deputy Leader, and Francisco Sanchez Galan, WP8 Leader

Photo collection: link