Characterisation of net type thermal insulators at 1.8 K low boundary temperature

The Large Hadron Collider's superconducting magnets are cooled by superfluid helium at 1.8 K and housed in cryostats that minimise the heat inleak to this temperature level by extracting heat at 70 and 5 K. In the first generation of prototype cryostats, the radiative heat to the 1.8 K temperature level accounted for 70 % of the total heat inleak. An alternative to enhance the cryostat thermal performance incorporates a thermalised radiation screen at 5 K. In order to avoid contact between the 5 K radiation screen and the cold mass, insulators are placed between both surfaces. Sets of commercial fibre glass nets are insulator candidates to minimise the heat inleak caused by a accidental contact between the two temperature levels. A model to estimate their performance is presented. A set-up to thermally characterise them has been designed and is also described in the paper. Finally, results as a function of the number of the spacer nets, the boundary temperatures and the compressive force in the spacer are presented.