Qualification and Start of Production of the Ultrasonic Welding Machines for the LHC Interconnections

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is presently under installation at CERN, Geneva. The approximately 4000 superconducting corrector magnets required by the machine are powered through copper-stabilized Nb-Ti busbars. To interconnect the magnets along the machine, about 50 000 joints between superconducting cables rated at 600 A have to be performed in-situ during the interconnection activities. An ultrasonic welding technique has been developed and optimized by CERN which led to the development of a dedicated machine which was qualified during the assembly of the STRING II, a 110-m chain of cryomagnets assembled as a prototype of the LHC. The realization of the "series" interconnections together with the procurement of the tooling based on functional specifications have been contracted to a consortium of firms. Qualification tests and acceptance criteria in terms of electrical contact resistance, mechanical resistance, reliability and reproducibility have been defined by CERN. This paper presents the tests and some results of the qualification process relevant to the industrialized tooling provided by the contractor. Results of pre-series junctions done in the LHC tunnel are presented together with the perspective for the continuation of the work