The first of 420 short straight sections for CERN’s LHC collider to be put on test at CERN has been successfully ramped to full current. These short straight sections, containing superconducting quadrupole magnets to keep the beams tightly focused, have been designed and prototyped by the French Atomic Energy Commission laboratory in Saclay and the neighbouring CNRS-IN2P3 laboratory at Orsay. These laboratories will also be responsible for their industrial follow-up as part of France’s special host-state contribution to the LHC project.
After preliminary tests at 9000 A and brief training, the first short straight section was soon ramped up to 13 000 A, the maximum current delivered by the LHC power converters and well above its nominal operating current of 11 870 A, which corresponds to a field gradient of 223 T/m. Following a thermal cycle to room temperature and back to 1.8 K, the short straight section could be ramped up directly to 13 000 A without any further training quenches.
