HL-LHC Vertical Cores
Introduction
The High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) project aims to upgrade the LHC in order to sustain scientific progress and fully exploit its capabilities. By increasing the nominal levelled luminosity by a factor of five beyond its initial design value, it will enable the collection of a dataset ten times larger than that gathered during the exploitation period of the nominal LHC.
After the completion of the new underground infrastructure of HL-LHC in 2021 the construction of the vertical cores is the only missing civil engineering element.
Objectives
Construction of 28 vertical cores, 14 at Point 1 in Switzerland and 14 at Point 5 in France shall be built. The vertical cores connect the invert of the newly constructed HL-LHC galleries to the vault of the LHC tunnel. The cores will have a final internal diameter of 1m and a length of around 7m. The cores will house technical infrastructure such as superconducting links, cryogenics pipes, radio-frequency coaxial cables, distribution lines, power and signal cable.
Contractor procurement
Execution design
Field test UA17
Execution design update
Construction
Key features
- 2-phase execution to reduce intervention in the LHC: 80% from HL-LHC galleries and 20% from LHC tunnel
- Execution in radiation protection environment
- Very reduced space available requiring the construction of custom-made machines
- Very reduced intervention time allocated
Gallery
