Supply a Vacuum Impregnation System for CERN European organization for nuclear research

ELYTT ENERGY, S.L. has supplied, the design, the construction, tests, installation and commissioning, a Vacuum Impregnation System, which will be used at CERN to impregnate superconducting coils made of Nb3Sn based conductor with radiation hard resin.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the most recent accelerator constructed on the CERN site. The LHC machine accelerates and collides proton beams but also heavier ions up to lead. It is installed in a 27 km circumference tunnel, about 100 m underground. The LHC design is based on superconducting twin-aperture cryo-magnets which operate in a superfluid helium bath at 1.9 K

Recently, after finishing the commissioning of the LHC, CERN has started a development program for high field magnets based on brittle Nb3Sn superconductors and on the wind-and-react technique. After the winding process the coils are put together in a stainless steel reaction fixture for heat treatment in a gas tight furnace. After the reaction process, the coils are placed into a stainless steel or aluminium mould for resin impregnation under vacuum. The VPI system could impregnate coils of 10 metros.

The system includes.

  • The vacuum chamber;
  • The ancillary equipment as the vacuum pumps and their ancillary parts, the mechanism to incline the vacuum chamber, the power regulator to control the resistance heaters, the equipment for degassing the resin before injection, the resin mixing and outgassing reservoir, and the resin outflow reservoir equipped with all its ancillaries;
  • The loading structure and the conveyor to introduce the load inside the vacuum chamber;
  • The collector of toxic substances;
  • The execution of all the measurements and tests, the acceptance tests at the contractor’s premises and after installation at CERN;
  • The installation and commissioning on the CERN site including start-up service;
  • The CE declaration of conformity, including the required safety documents;
  • The training of CERN personnel on the CERN site;