Update: liquid-hydrogen system commissioning:¶

The third and final test of the liquid-hydrogen system using neon was successful. The test ended last Thursday (03Aug17) and the system was allowed to warm up over the weekend. The warm-up has been slow, indicating excellent thermal installation.

The outstanding work that must be carried out before the final safety inspection includes the completion of the remedial work on the hydrogen-quench line, the installation and inspection of ATEX-rated fittings in the LH2 shed on the roof of then MICE Hall and the completion of the safety-related paper work. In addition, the leak testing in the hydrogen-gas panel has to be repeated to document the (low and satisfactory) leak rates. The liquid-hydrogen team is working steadily to address the last remaining issues.

The final safety tour is scheduled for 17Aug17. Assuming the system is signed off as safe to operate, the commissioning of the system with hydrogen will commence as soon after the tour as possible.

New public results for upcoming conferences, e.g., COOL17 and NuFact17:¶

Progress on our various analyses is good and the analysis teams are pushing hard to complete the work necessary to bring forward new results. Two conferences that are important for us to present our work are on the horizon, COOL17 (18—22 September 2017) and NuFact17 (25–30 September 2017).

In view of the approaching conferences, I thought it timely to restate the procedure by which we make new results public. The results must be presented to the collaboration at a video conference or collaboration meeting so that the results can be discussed and agreed before they are made public. An entry is then made on the public information page to document the new results.

For the upcoming conferences, the video conference on the 7th September 2017 will be the time when new results should be presented to the collaboration. The 7th is perfectly timed for COOL17 as it is two weeks ahead of the conference. Since COOL17 and NuFact17 are only one week apart, the video conference on the 7th will serve for NuFact as well.

With best wishes …

Ken