LHC Shut Down By Transformer Malfunction 293
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."
Not the end of the world... (Score:3, Interesting)
Can one of you physicists tell me how 4.5 Kelvin is different from 2 Kelvin, operationally?
Re:Dead 30 ton transformer? (Score:1, Interesting)
Really. What is the worst thing [youtube.com] that could happen when a large oil cooled transformer fails?
Re:Is the speed of light slower near Lyons (Score:1, Interesting)
Now, accelerating a proton to the speed of light seems to me impossible, given that they are in a vacuum.
I'm not a physicist but I do read some of the layman cosmology and theoretical physics books when I can so maybe I'm still missing something but exactly why does that seem impossible? Having a vacuum actually makes it easier due to no wind resistance if we were talking about an object big enough for wind resistance to matter. They are using magnets to accelerate the particles so I'm not getting why you are questioning the possibility of what they did. Unfortunately no one else questioned you yet for me to share in your answer with them so I had to be the first to ask.
Re:Why the tone in the summary? (Score:4, Interesting)
The summary authors don't seem to understand. Nobody at CERN reported the malfunction? I assume they mean "reported to the press" -- otherwise, how did they fix a 30-ton transistor without telling anyone.
Anyway, things malfunction and break on particle accelerators constantly. They're devilishly difficult to maintain properly. (They operate in extreme fail-safe modes, so failures harmless but common.)
Re:Why the tone in the summary? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What, did Fermilab make the transformer too? (Score:3, Interesting)
Not Quite the point here (Score:5, Interesting)
The used superconductors are good well above 4K (although with decreased maximum saturation).
The main point is that they want their helium to be superfluidic, as otherwise it would be impossible to direct the heat over the many km needed (if their were bubble formation in the dewars).
With superfluidic helium, heat resistance also drops nearly to zero(as we are in the real world, it cannot be zero. But heat conductivity increases by many magnitudes, and bubble formation is eliminated). That way, they can keep heat gradients along the whole ring well below 1K.
Re:Link to current status page (Score:4, Interesting)
The current status of the beam can always be viewed here [web.cern.ch]
Which currently says "We just had a major quench in sector 34. More news as we get it"
IIRC a quench (loss of superconductivity because of the magnetic fields) is likely to cause extra damage, so this sounds a lot more important than a simple transformer failure. Plus therer might be design issues that caused it.
Good luck to the LHC team. I guess this is how a real beta goes