Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by janrinok on Thursday October 24 2019, @05:34AM   Printer-friendly
from the more-discoveries-to-come dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Halfway toward LHC consolidation

The Large Hadron Collider is such a huge and sophisticated machine that the slightest alteration requires an enormous amount of work. During the second long shutdown (LS2), teams are hard at work reinforcing the electrical insulation of the accelerator's superconducting dipole diodes. The LHC contains not one, not two, but 1232 superconducting dipole magnets, each with a diode system to upgrade. That's why no fewer than 150 people are needed to carry out the 70 000 tasks involved in this work.

The project is now halfway to completion. One of the machine's eight sectors, containing 154 magnets, is now closed and the final leak tests are under way. Work is ongoing in the seven other sectors and the teams are working at a rate of ten interconnections consolidated per day.

[...] A plethora of upgrade and maintenance work is also being carried out in the tunnel on all the equipment, from the cryogenics system to the vacuum, beam instrumentation and technical infrastructures.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 1) by Stardaemon on Thursday October 24 2019, @06:44AM (3 children)

    by Stardaemon (4294) on Thursday October 24 2019, @06:44AM (#911133)

    Like, replacing the workers with a script?

  • (Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Thursday October 24 2019, @06:50AM

    by WizardFusion (498) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 24 2019, @06:50AM (#911135) Journal

    Why not, I could do with with some of the people I work with. :)

  • (Score: 2) by coolgopher on Thursday October 24 2019, @07:11AM (1 child)

    by coolgopher (1157) on Thursday October 24 2019, @07:11AM (#911138)

    I was thinking more along the lines of assembly robots. These days you can get ones with vision support that allows them to deal with a more variable environment. I would've thought that someone like Toyota would've been keen to step up to such a challenge.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 24 2019, @03:47PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 24 2019, @03:47PM (#911237)

      This is only the second long downtime and I doubt this particular task will be repeated exactly the same way ever again. 1200 units might be worth making specialized tools if they need them but it is still cheaper to train people to do the work than to automate it.