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LHC Shut Down By Transformer Malfunction
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Sep 18, 2008 07:53 PM
from the it's-only-broken-if-you-look dept.
from the it's-only-broken-if-you-look dept.
Ortega-Starfire writes "A 30-ton transformer in the Large Hadron Collider malfunctioned, requiring complete replacement on the day the LHC came online. No one at CERN reported any problems, and they only released this data once the Associated Press sent people to investigate rumors of problems. I guess it's hard to just sweep a 30-ton transformer breaking under the rug."
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[+]
Second Snag This Week Could Delay LHC for Weeks 160 comments
sciencehabit writes "After a transformer failure earlier this week, the Large Hadron Collider has hit another snag — and this one is much more serious. As Science reports, 'At least one of the LHC's more than 1700 superconducting magnets failed, springing a leak and spewing helium gas into the subterranean tunnel that houses the collider ... How long [repairs take] will depend in part on how much of the LHC must be warmed to room temperature for servicing. If it's only a short section, the repair could be relatively quick. But the machine is built in octants, and if workers have to heat and cool an entire octant, then the cooling alone would take several weeks."
Reader Simmeh contributes coverage from the BBC. We recently discussed the transformer malfunction at the LHC, which was a smaller problem and has already been fixed. Update - 9/20 at 12:52 by SS: CNN reports that the LHC will be out of commission for two months.
[+]
LHC Offline Until April 2009 (Or Longer) 298 comments
rufey writes "The recent problems at the Large Hadron Collider will now keep it idle until spring 2009. The official press release is here. The LHC went offline due to a suspected failure in a superconducting connection, which overheated and caused around 100 of the LHC's super-cooled magnets to heat up by as much as 100 degrees. This resulted in the accidental release of a ton of liquid helium. The process required to repair the failed superconducting connection involves weeks of warming up the affected area from -456 degrees Fahrenheit to room temperature, and then several more weeks to cool it back down after the repair is made. The total amount of time to do this will spill over into CERN's scheduled winter maintenance/shutdown period, which is partly done to save money on electricity during the period of peak demand."
[+]
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[+]
Hadron Collider Relaunch Delayed 213 comments
SpuriousLogic writes "There's been another delay in the schedule announced for getting the Large Hadron Collider switched back on — now it's September 2009, a year after it shut down due to a malfunction. Scientists had said they expected the $5.4B machine to be repaired by November 2008, but then pushed the date back to June 2009, before the latest delay."
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Transformers... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Transformers... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Transformers... (Score:5, Informative)
They're going to use the LHC to make energon cubes.
There, fixed that for you. Also, turn in your geen badge.
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Re:morethanmeetstheeye (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:morethanmeetstheeye (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:morethanmeetstheeye (Score:5, Funny)
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A Transformer? (Score:5, Funny)
I bet it was Omegatron!
GORDON! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:GORDON! (Score:5, Funny)
http://i35.tinypic.com/256fu4g.jpg [tinypic.com]
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Why the tone in the summary? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a big, complicated machine - shit breaks. It gets fixed. I wouldn't worry about it unless you're waiting for beam time.
Re:Why the tone in the summary? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Why the tone in the summary? (Score:5, Funny)
They're not trying to cover up a broken transformer - they're trying to cover up the tiny black hole that formed in the transformers, and is growing exponentially.
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Re:Why the tone in the summary? (Score:5, Informative)
a) Yes, it is a big complicated machine, things will break, this device barely impacted the overall schedule at all. People have been working on this project for about 2 decades. A week or two isn't in the least bit significant.
b) If this had happened say, 5 years from now, this point would be as irrelevant as it is now. And as noteworthy.
c) Cosmic rays interact in our atmosphere in the PeV range (Peta Electron Volt), the LHC smashes particles together in the 14 TeV (Tera Electron Volt). Sooo.... it operates at energy levels an order of magnitude less than what currently happens on Earth... I don't know about you, but I feel pretty safe about the whole thing.
d) They did fix it pronto, and it does work. Little things break, I know where I work (a not so little accelerator) I didn't hear a PEEP about this incident and we have been directly and closely involved in the LHC.
In short, I agree with hairykrishna, this isn't really news. Just another instance of the media trying to make a big deal out of something small.
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sweep a 30-ton transformer breaking under the rug? (Score:5, Funny)
It would be hard to sweep a 30-ton transformer under a rug, unless there is a black hole under said rug.
Re:sweep a 30-ton transformer breaking under the r (Score:5, Funny)
True, but if they're real scientists they'd figure out it's easier to sweep the black hole under the 30-ton transformer. When done, cover up with rug.
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Re:sweep a 30-ton transformer breaking under the r (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know how you do it. It never works for me.
I could've sworn I left my favorite rug on top of the black hole in the living room the other day but, crazy as it sounds, it seems to have just disappeared. I'd swear on a stack of bibles that's where I left the dang thing and you know it didn't just grow legs and walk out of the house.
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One transformer down... (Score:5, Funny)
several to go.
Well ALICE, let's see how deep the budget hole goes...
Reminder (Score:5, Funny)
Just in case anyone else misread the headline, there's a vas deferens between the Large Hadron Collider and the Large Hardon Collider.
Re:Reminder (Score:5, Funny)
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I don't really think CERN owe the media any favors (Score:5, Insightful)
Whilst I'm sure that is beneficial for CERN in the context that most people will be completely unaware on the day that full speed collisions are truly started, I do not for one moment think the media had that intention. A publicised failure would only serve to increase people's prejudice.
Is the speed of light slower near Lyons (Score:5, Funny)
After it was started up Sept. 10, scientists circled a beam of protons in a clockwise direction at the speed of light. They shut that down, then turned on a counterclockwise beam.
Now, accelerating a proton to the speed of light seems to me impossible, given that they are in a vacuum. But if they can do that, then the other interpretation is possible. It was the scientists who were circling at the speed of light, round say, a little beaker of protons. I'd like to commend whoever shut them down, then anti-beamed them to restore reality.
Not News and News (Score:5, Insightful)
If you read TFA, you discover that it, but not the provided summary on /., says it was news to nobody in the field that something broke. What's not said here, but said in TFA and far more worthy of mention, is that they replaced it and were running again the next day, well before AP even inquired. Falling prey to the cheap journalistic gimmick of awfulism, are we?
Re:Not the end of the world... (Score:5, Informative)
Can one of you physicists tell me how 4.5 Kelvin is different from 2 Kelvin, operationally?
At 2 K, adding a given amount of energy makes the entropy of the system go up 2.25 times as much as it would at 4.5 K. :)
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Re:Not the end of the world... (Score:5, Informative)
Well, I haven't the faintest idea how the damn thing is cooled, but helium becomes superfliud at 2.17K (iirc). It effectively loses all of its viscosity and becomes far more thermally conductive. At 2K its a superfluid, at 4.5K its not. Cool stuff, but I don't know if it matters, I don't know squat about the LHC. (see what you get for asking a question on /.?)
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Re:I have a degree in electrical engineering... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a fairly standard measurement for mass, though. Transformers have mass, so it's perfectly applicable, especially when you are trying to underscore the massiveness of the piece of equipment in question, rather than its functional capability. If the person writing the article/summary wanted to underscore the cost of the unit, he might have measured it in US dollars. That's what journalists do: describe things in terms their readers might understand or care about. And most of their readers aren't pedantic electrical engineers.
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