LHCb: Design of a Highly Optimised Vacuum Chamber Support for the LHCb Experiment

The beam vacuum chamber in the LHCb experimental area passes through the centre of a large aperture dipole magnet. The vacuum chamber and all its support systems lie in the acceptance of the detector, so must be highly optimised for transparency to particles. As part of the upgrade programme for the LHCb vacuum system, the support system has been re-designed using advanced lightweight materials. In this paper we discuss the physics motivation for the modifications, the criteria for the selection of materials and tests performed to qualify them for the particular environment of a particle physics experiment. We also present the design of the re-optimised support system.