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CERN Releases Analysis of LHC Incident
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Oct 16, 2008 07:07 PM
from the training-exercise-was-too-trite dept.
from the training-exercise-was-too-trite dept.
sash writes "From the fresh press release: 'Investigations at CERN following a large helium leak into sector 3-4 of the Large Hadron Collider tunnel have confirmed that cause of the incident was a faulty electrical connection between two of the accelerator's magnets. This resulted in mechanical damage and release of helium from the magnet cold mass into the tunnel.
Proper safety procedures were in force, the safety systems performed as expected, and no one was put at risk. Sufficient spare components are in hand to ensure that the LHC is able to restart in 2009, and measures to prevent a similar incident in the future are being put in place.'"
Related Stories
[+]
Earliest LHC Restart Slated For Late Summer 2009 229 comments
gaijinsr writes "The damage done in what CERN calls the 'S34 Incident' (and what other people call a major explosion in the cryogenics system) is much more serious than originally admitted: The earliest possible restart date is late summer next year, but with some proposed improvements to avoid repetitions of the incident, it looks more like 2010. They kept this pretty quiet up to now, not the kind of information policy I would expect from CERN."
[+]
Photos of the Damage To the Large Hadron Collider 106 comments
holy_calamity writes "CERN have released images of the damage done to the world's most powerful machine, the Large Hadron Collider, when an electrical fault caused a helium leak. New Scientist has posted them, along with explanations of what you can see. The sudden burst of gas shifted some of the huge superconducting magnets by half a meter, causing at least $21 million in damage."
[+]
Large Hadron Collider Struggling 371 comments
Writing in the NY Times, Dennis Overbye covers the birthing pangs and the prospects for CERN's Large Hadron Collider (which we have discussed numerous times). "The biggest, most expensive physics machine in the world is riddled with thousands of bad electrical connections. [And] many of the magnets meant to whiz high-energy subatomic particles around a 17-mile underground racetrack have mysteriously lost their ability to operate at high energies. Some physicists are deserting the European project, at least temporarily, to work at a smaller, rival machine [Fermilab's Tevatron] across the ocean. ... Technicians have spent most of the last year cleaning up and inspecting thousands of splices in the collider. About 5,000 will have to be redone... Retraining magnets is costly and time consuming, experts say, and it might not be worth the wait to get all the way to the original target energy [of 7 TeV]. Many physicists say they would be perfectly happy if the collider never got above five trillion electron volts. Dr. Myers said he thought the splices as they are could handle 4 [TeV]. 'We could be doing physics at the end of November,' he said in July, before new vacuum leaks pushed the schedule back a few additional weeks. 'It's not the design energy of the machine, but it's 4 times higher than the Tevatron,' he said."
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But but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:But but.... (Score:5, Funny)
Guarntee? Hell no. But there's usually a warranty: 30-day money back, 2 year with manufacturer (if you pay for shipping) and 1 year or more extensions by paying 20% or more of purchase price. If I were the USA or Europe, I would make a claim on the warranty. Return the LHC under the money-back or warranty terms. Besides, with all that helium leakage, its obvious that a bunch of Chipmunks run the whole show. So much for science. Bah!
1. Buy Monster Cables
2. Spend too much money
3. ????????????
4. Working LHC ?????
Parent
Re:But but.... (Score:5, Interesting)
AFAIK, there's nothing terribly innovative about the accelerator or cryo portions of the LHC, apart from the scale of the thing.
The CEBAF in Virginia has been operating at 2 Kelvin since the mid-80s. The technology to operate an accelerator at Liquid Helium temperatures is mature and well-understood.
Odds are, this is a one-time design/construction hiccup. It's unfortunate that it happened, but should be something which can easily be overcome.
Parent
Re:But but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a basic "trueism" of civil engineering that when you up the scale, you inevitably up the risks. Every little component which itself has a small risk of failure often adds ontop of each other, ultimately give a far greater risk of failure (or at least construction delays/setbacks). The technology may be sound at one scale, but that doesn't mean getting it to work on a bigger scale isn't difficult and doesn't present new problems.
This area of the LHC was always a major challenge. I just hope they can overcome this problem (as appears to be the case) but more importantly that the measures taken to prevent future faults work as planned.
Parent
Re:But but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or consider when you buy the amount of cable they did, that 0.00001% chance of defect creeps in.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If you really believed that, you'd never willingly board any aircraft.
Sure, things break down, whether electrical or mechanical. So what? That's why we conduct regular inspections, replace components based on established life-cycles, and conduct regular test-runs to ensure all systems function prior to being put into active service. Technicians aren't a bunch of witch-doctors, dancing around the machinery, shaking rattles, and moving components at random. It's a science like any other, and it produces r
They got the idea from Deep Thought (Score:5, Funny)
Re:They got the idea from Deep Thought (Score:5, Informative)
"to stall for 6 months"
I think it needs pointing out though that the LHC was always going to be shutdown over the next few months as a planned contigency period in-case of even bigger faults occuring then the one which did (or construction being delayed as was widely expected).
The real experiments will be occuring by mid-2009.
Parent
Too bad (Score:5, Interesting)
It's too bad that projects like the LHC will soon run out of funding as bankrupt nations concentrate on keeping their populations fed and/or preventing the overthrow of their governments, rather than burning issues like "what is mass, really, when you get down to it?". Of course glitches and malfunctions like this (and the previous ones) will only serve to put us past the point of possibly having been able to answer that question, but failing due to lack of funding.
How many billions of Euros have been spent on this project already?
Re:Too bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Too bad (Score:5, Informative)
How many billions of Euros have been spent on this project already?
About 3.4 billion euros, and estimated to total around 6 billion euros in the end. Compared to a lot of other things, that isn't that much. Especially when you consider that several countries have been shouldering the cost together
Parent
Re:Too bad (Score:5, Insightful)
If I had the choice of spending six billion euros on a quest to unlock some of the greatest mysteries on earth, or spend $US700 billion bailing out overpaid bankers and their cash-poor customers, I know what I would choose.
Parent
Re:Too bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Me, too. But if someone wants to pick "neither," what right do we have to take his money and spend it on our pet projects, anyway?
Parent
Re:Too bad (Score:5, Insightful)
with any public program there will be some people against its funding. so does that mean we do away with public schools, roads, mail system, police, fire departments, libraries, and all forms of public infrastructure and government?
a democratic society makes decisions based on public good. most people would agree that funding the arts and sciences is in public interest. if you are really against public research, you can try to petition the government to cut scientific funding (this has happened recently). if that is not enough, you can move to a country where the government doesn't fund any scientific research (i'm sure there are a few out there).
living in a society with other people means making compromises, that is part of the social contract which allows a civil society to exist. a free society doesn't mean everyone gets everything that they want even when it conflicts with the interests of the majority. thinking that you should always get what you want regardless of the good of the whole is a rather self-centered and immature attitude to take.
Parent
Re:Too bad (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a question of whether or not it is in the public interest. Clearly the public benefits from funding in the sciences, and less easily measurable in the arts. But how does that interest weigh against a man's right to the fruits of his own labors?
The question is who funds it. If I believe (and I do, btw) that funding basic sciences and building particle accelerators a boon to myself and mankind, I'm inclined to donate some money to universities or other organizations engaged in the research I'm interested in (or that someone makes a cogent argument as to why I ought to be interested in.)
The question is: do I have the right to demand YOUR treasure for things that make ME happy. I'm willing to concede that I have the right to spend *some* of your money on projects of particular import: police, fire, national defense, certain critical infrastructure, but every expenditure of public monies (even those I just mentioned) should be thoroughly debated, for every dollar spent was taken under threat of violence.
Parent
Re:Too bad (Score:5, Insightful)
In a word: No.
YOU have no right to demand much of anything from ME. However, if we live in the same society, that society have rights to demand things of both you and me. It might demand some of MY treasure and give it to YOUR pet project.
When you (implicitly) agree to take part of the benefits of living in a society, you also (implicitly) agree to pay the costs.
The second you paid your taxes it's no longer your money, it's ours (as in yours and mine and everyone elses in our society). The distribution of which we've decided to leave up to our politicians (since we cannot bother ourselves).
The politicians do "thoroughly debate" every expenditure, but not necessarily in a venue you or I have (easy) access to. This is in order since we've relinquished our right to influence those decisions.
Parent
Forgotten the $3+ trillion war already? (Score:4, Insightful)
You remember - the unnecessary war of aggression, waged on false pretences, that most people* found abhorrent?
(*counting non-Americans)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The world needs a war cookie jar... you can go off to war as long as you put a dollar in the jar for every dollar spent in warfare.
Re:Too bad (Score:5, Informative)
"The total cost of the project is expected to be 3.2-6.4 billion.[15]" - wikipedia
[15] = http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/03/god-particle/achenbach-text [nationalgeographic.com]
Skimmed over the reference, page 6 states:
"Some U.S. money has gone into the LHC, which will cost billions of dollars: five, maybe ten--the exact number is elusive (the science will be precise, but the accounting apparently follows the Uncertainty Principle)."
Contrast that with, say, the Joint Strike Fighter program+purchases:
"Total development costs are estimated at more than US$40 billion (underwritten largely by the United States), while the purchase of an estimated 2,400 planes is expected to cost an additional US$200 billion.[49]"
Parent
Re:Too bad (Score:5, Funny)
Contrast that with, say, the Joint Strike Fighter program+purchases: "Total development costs are estimated at more than US$40 billion (underwritten largely by the United States), while the purchase of an estimated 2,400 planes is expected to cost an additional US$200 billion.[49]"
So all in all, the LHC is vastly better value for money.
Parent
Re:Too bad (Score:5, Informative)
I suppose, if 35 km [google.com] (25 km if you go wingtip to wingtip) is "nothing like" 27 km.
Parent
Re:Too bad (Score:5, Funny)
Hey babe, wanna go for a ride in a fighter jet?
vs.
Hey babe, wanna go see my collider?
Fighter jet wins.
Parent
Re:Too bad (Score:4, Funny)
Collider? I barely know her!
Parent
Re:Too bad (Score:5, Insightful)
The LHC will definitely find itself on the chopping block if we go back to mud farming and cooking our food by burning witches; but it is pretty cheap for a science project of that scale and scope.
Parent
Re:Too bad (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Too bad (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll take the above as sarcastic...but sometimes it's hard to tell. Honestly, there's always an argument for 'fix the wrongs of society' before funding pure science. ...
You have committed the logical fallacy of: False Dichotomy.
This is not an either/or. You could do both (or neither).
Why is it "pure science" vs "fix the wrongs" instead of "pure science" vs "cosmetics" or "cosmetics" vs "fix the wrongs".
Additionally, can you ever "fix the wrongs," or will there always be more?
Parent
Re:Too bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly.
Unfortunately for most of the population, the amount of money that governments generate is unimaginable. (My self included) When you are talking about that much money, the term it self almost loses the everyday definition. It is pure power to make things happen on a huge scale. A mobilizing agent of human power and innovation.
There is so much money to be spent that the government hardly knows what to do with it all.
Well maybe that last statement is unfair. They know how to spend it, they just do not know how to do it in an efficient manner without gross negligence in many instances.
And hey, maybe figuring out what mass is "really" will help us solve world hunger. Its worked before...
Parent
Re:Too bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, it seems to me like you can't put the 5 billion euros into both the LHC and other causes at the same time.
The point about fixing the wrongs is a good one. LHC will ultimately yield substantial progress towards understanding the universe (which, to fully appreciate, you really have to be a physicist). What is the expectation of sinking the money into a social program? Many programs here in the states are poorly constructed or simply underfunded so end up a waste, while some can truly help many people more directly and immediately than basic science research. From this angle, it seems science is a lower risk investment.
PS Obviously things are just that simple, though...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Some social programs DO work - the problem is that when governments spend money on social development they generally either can't predict or don't care about the efficiency of the program. The politician who promises to increase welfare payouts to poor families probably doesn't give a damn about whether his promise will have a positive or negative effect in the long term - he cares mostly about getting votes.
You see the same things in other examples of government spending. NASA did some amazing things in
Bleah. Big hassle. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's worse than I'd thought. They may have to pull quite a few magnets out of the tunnel for repair, and some sheered off their mountings.
There's a lot of energy stored in those superconducting magnets. A magnet quench, where superconductivity is lost, is a violent event, even when the electrical safeties all work properly, as they did here. The magnet heats up suddenly, and boils the liquid helium. That blasts into the vacuum insulation cavity, setting off further quenches in nearby magnets. The pressures were high enough to blow out relief disks (as planned) and damage the vacuum valves to adjacent sections (not expected.).
None of this is about the physics. It's all plumbing and electrical work.
Re: (Score:3)
A LOT of physics went into designing and modeling the most powerful magnets ever made. Heck at full strength they will be about as strong as the strongest fields within the sun.
Re:Bleah. Big hassle. (Score:5, Funny)
It's all plumbing and electrical work.
Send in Joe the Plumber!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, the quenches themselves are not the problem, these are quite under control and during the so-called training campaign something that is even deliberately induced.
The problem here is more a chain of unfortunate events, and something that wasn't expected during design.
Basically what happened is:
- faulty electrical connection caused the power supply to trip (i.e. detect some problem and shut down)
- fast discharge was triggered as a consequence
- during fast discharge the current couldn't be handled by
Re:Bleah. Big hassle. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't really understand what point you're trying to make. A lot of plumbing and electrical work IS engineering. The engineers know that all their analysis tools are based on physics and it doesn't take a physicist to understand how the support systems work and how to analyze them. The design of the systems is NOT a physics experiment, all the phenomena at work were well pinned down before anyone even thought of making the LHC. This is an engineering problem just like the space shuttle is an engineering problem. Just because the engineers didn't account for a particular failure case doesn't mean that the underlying dynamics aren't known.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I don't really understand what point you're trying to make.
The point is that the damage is worse that originally reported. Early reports indicated that the connections to a magnet had failed and the magnet had quenched, without damage to the magnet. That by itself wouldn't be too hard to fix, and probably could have been done in place. But, as it turns out, there was considerable damage to other magnets and vacuum lines. All this is in an underground tunnel, so access is tough. Especially since the
Stop the Insanity!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Really??? Wow!
10 Trillion debt => GDP ~ 14 trillion so 71% debt to GDP ! HA!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt
Sorting by debt to GDP, US is 27th best (last year!, now worse)
I see a lot of coutries better than 70% :)
* Spain? (30%)
* Iran! (25%)
* Mexico (22%)
* New Zealand (20%)
How about external debt??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt
US is world's worst total debt. holder. Per capita, it is still on first page.. Nasty a
That's what they want you to think. (Score:5, Funny)
What really happened is that the LHC destroyed the universe, but then put it back almost the same way as it was before, at least close enough that nobody noticed it.
"But," I hear you ask, "how could the LHC put the universe back together from inside a universe that, speaking rather loosely, did not at the moment exist?"
Well, an equivalent (from an observational standpoint) way of looking at it is that the LHC created a nearly exact duplicate parallel universe at the same time it destroyed the one it was currently residing in. However, it would be totally pointless to create an exact duplicate, otherwise how would you know you actually did it? So it ... left out a bit. Specifically the bit that was containing the liquid helium in LHC'.
It really is one hell of a parlor trick.
Re:That's what they want you to think. (Score:5, Funny)
I think I may have found one more difference in the new universe.
I woke up on the day of the accident with a goatee, which of course means I am my evil twin in this universe.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
It's better than waking up with goatse
Re:That's what they want you to think. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:That's what they want you to think. (Score:5, Funny)
CRAP! Why didn't I think of that!
I just got busted by the guys on my hockey team for wearing panties. When one of them asked how long I'd been doing that, I had to tell him, "Since my girlfriend found them in my glove box."
Parent
no one was put at risk... (Score:2)
Some interns were sucked into a black hole created by the experiment,
but in any undertaking this complex you must expect some minor setbacks.
So they soldier on with a renewed sense of enthusiasm for the mission.
I've had experience dealing with this! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I've had experience dealing with this! (Score:4, Funny)
You work in tech support?
Parent
Meanwhile, in related news ... (Score:5, Funny)
What really happened... (Score:5, Funny)
Safety First! (Score:2)
Fortunately our Safety Inspector [photobucket.com] was able to assure us that the large electrical arcs and hole in the facility were perfectly okay.
Thank god for that right!
Pug
They're waiting for you, in the test chamber (Score:4, Funny)
Overhead capacitors to one oh five percent. Uh, it's
probably not a problem, probably, but I'm showing a small discrepancy in... well, no, it's well within acceptable bounds again. Sustaining sequence.