Consolidation of the 13-kA Superconducting Magnet Circuits of the LHC at CERN

The first long shutdown (LS1) of the LHC machine at CERN started in February 2013. The main trigger for LS1 was the consolidation of the bus bar joints in the 13-kA superconducting magnet circuits. Before LS1, the copper continuity of these joints was not sufficiently good to ensure a safe passage of the current in case of a quench in the superconducting cable at currents larger than 7-8 kA. The consolidation mainly consists in adding shunts made of high conductivity copper across each joint connecting the bus bars of the neighboring magnets in order to ensure the copper continuity. After LS1, the LHC can then be operated up to the original nominal conditions, i.e., a collision energy of 14 TeV. There are 1695 interconnects, each containing six 13-kA joints, of which two belong to the main dipole circuit and four to the main quadrupole circuits. This paper describes the different steps of the consolidation work performed on the 10 170 magnet-to-magnet joints. The work on the splices proper has been organized in the form of a train made of six production teams, all together consisting of about 90 persons, including operators, supervision, and quality assurance. The work flow is managed with the help of a web-based tool called WISH. This paper describes as well the quality control and quality assurance methods put in place to ensure the quality of the work throughout the project, and it summarizes the benefits of the consolidation work in terms of copper continuity, operation margin, and robustness of the new insulation system.