LHC Beam Commissioning meeting - 10th February 2009

Present:  Etienne Carlier, Kajetan Fuchsberger, Rossano Giachino, Brennan Goddard, Jean-Jacques Gras, Lar Jensen, Verena Kain, Greg Kruk, Mike Lamont (chair), Alick Macpherson, Malika Meddahi, Mirko Pojer, Bruno Puccio, Ghislain Roy, Katarina Sigerud, Matteo Solfaroli, Ralph Steinhagen, Ezio Todesco, Jan Uythoven, Antonio Vergara Fernandez, Walter Venturini, Frank Zimmermann.

Reported by Mike Lamont

For discussion:

• Scheduling of integration tests, availability of controls, hardware and instrumentation etc. what, when & who?
• Extraction and transfer line tests when, how long, how much, who?
• Scheduling of machine protection commissioning given the present timetable for the powering tests as part of integration tests – what? when? without beam - which systems, when
• Scheduling of machine checkout given the present timetable for the powering tests
• Possible injection tests When? Where?
• Scheduling of DSO tests and final access system tests How long? When?
• Strategy during initial beam commissioning (vis-à-vis machine protection etc.)
• Tests of controls infrastructure what? when?

Integration tests

Multi-system tests to check integration and readiness of all systems involved in a given phase of LHC operations:

• Check all equipment control functionality
• Slow timing, fast timing, synchronization
• Data acquisition Alarms, logging, post mortem, fixed displays
• Equipment control & access
• Real-time feedback system
• Analogue acquisition
• Software Controls infrastructure: servers, databases etc.
• Software Interlock System
• Management of Critical Settings
• Role Based Access Control
• Drive all relevant systems in a synchronized way through the standard operational sequence
• Check machine protection and interlock systems

Main integration tests from last year identified as (see below for details):

• IT1: Beam dump system and here
• IT2: injection dry runs
• IT3: Nominal cycle
• IT4: PGC as final step of powering tests
• IT5: Experiments/physics mode
• IT6: Experiments' magnets and compensators
• IT7: Beam Instrumentation

Prerequisites for each test should be established.

Noted carefully checks of acc, dec, dI/dt against trims: tune, chromaticity, multipoles, separation bumps, coupling required long before beam. Also prepare and check bumps required for measurement procedures e.g. aperture scans etc.

Some d2I/dt2 issues still to be ironed out (triplets etc.)

Beam Instrumentation eager to crank their stuff up again but need certain infrastructure in place:

• Energy over timing system (to trigger BLM threshold changes in the ramp etc.) Etienne agreed to start up the BETSsim in the near future.
• Energy pushed to SMP and then out over timing. Back-up solution exists to simulate energy from SMP (Bruno).
• Event tables required by BI to be played (Verena).

Would like to see concentrators, FECs up and running and some dedicated commissioning time before the dry runs start proper. Thereafter schedule dedicated dry runs for beam instrumentation to avoid interference seen last year.

• Dedicated post-mortem tests should be foreseen. Going to have to watch the impact of events going out again - experiments, powering tests etc.
• PLL and WCM being tested in SPS (Ralph)
• Have to firm up bunch.beam configuration - make sure RF/BI agree where circulating bunch are.
• BLM - will have to test with what's available as year progresses. Clearly monitors in S34 etc only available later. Should start testing acquisition chain soon, leading into full-scale availability tests later in the year. Agreed that as much as possible of the distributed BI systems should be started up at the beginning of March.
• [Jan: No masked BLM if intensity greater than pilot.]
• Need to log orbit, tunes, CODS etc (wasn't done last year). Action: JJG
• Still some issues about SDDS versus logging- need to clear up what is going where.

BIS (Bruno)

• Will maintain permit loops need for LBDS test etc.
• Commission and test in shadow of powering tests (different interface to commission)
• Plan 2 weeks of permit loops on, 2 weeks off from the end of May. LBDS to phase in with this rhythm for their tests.
• Safe Beam Flags etc. available end June - brand new - needs to be tested seriously.

Injection Kickers: permits, pre-pulses, BETS, synchronization etc. some changes to make (Etienne/Verena/Julian) - should be tested before hardware become available for tests from the CCC. Similarly for beam dumps, which will only become available in July for tests from CCC (see Jan's planning & figure below). Tests with MKI/MKE together should be planned. MKI now interlock against beam loss - be tested.

Machine Protection System Commissioning: some components need as part of integration tests Without beam need to test everything again [JW]. Individual system tests leading into global tests in September. Want to schedule in a dedicated period for fill machine check-out and global machine protection tests. With beam start with MPS-1, complete machine protection qualification before proceeding with MPS-2. Given the risks, this strategy to be pursued with rigour.

LBDS foreseen at least 10 ramps with all four dipole chains connected before beam.

Access (Ghislain)  Access should have finished upgrades etc by May. Signals need to tested one by one as pre-cursor to 2 day DSO tests. Foresee dedicated partial DSO tests in 2 & 8 as pre-requisite for transfer line tests. Full DSO tests 2-3 days before injection tests. Final  access control tests for 3 days, 2 weeks before beam.

Beam Tests

Should test semi-nominal injection scheme request and transfer in injectors with more than the single bunch seen so far. Ideally combined with extraction tests. Check with Elias for dedicated beam time in MD, bring this up in ATOP (Mike).

Suggested dates for tests (Bren/Mike) - clearly have to sync. in with powering tests, coordinate with experiments for transfer line tests. Injection tests will, again, required closure of entire ring.

A high intensity transfer line test as requested by BT would also provide a good opportunity to measure (and then extrapolate) the radiation field in UJs and UAs.

Controls

• Solution required to load/trigger optics to RT service unit of Global Orbit feedback system
• Deployment of RBAC in secure mode has to be checked carefully. Most things should be OK, but out in the tail of the distribution we will undoubtedly encounter problems - to be tested very thoroughly.
• Full MCS check to be performed at the end of March (Verena) - again critical.
• Decision to be made on powering of MSI with either muGef or FGC. FGC would appear to be the more logical choice and fall naturally into LHC control (settings generation and compensation during ramp down etc.).
• Configure and start up concentrators start of March.

Sketch of 2009 - for further discussion