Optimization of the powering tests of the LHC superconducting circuits

The Large Hadron Collider has (LHC) 1572 superconducting circuits which are distributed along the eight 3.5 km LHC sectors [1]. Time and resources during the commissioning of the LHC technical systems were mostly consumed by the powering tests of each circuit. The tests consisted in carrying out several powering cycles at different current levels for each superconducting circuit. The Hardware Commissioning Coordination was in charge of planning, following up and piloting the execution of the test program. The first powering test campaign was carried out in summer 2007 for sector 7-8 with an expected duration of 12 weeks. The experience gained during these tests was used by the commissioning team for minimising the duration of the following powering campaigns to comply with the stringent LHC project deadlines. Improvements concerned several areas: strategy, procedures, control tools, automatization, and resource allocation led to an average daily test rate increase from 25 to 200 tests per day. This paper describes these improvements and details their impact on the operation during the last months of LHC Hardware Commissioning.