Series fabrication of the main quadrupole cold masses for the LHC begins

Three hundred and sixty main quadrupole (MQ) magnets will perform the principal beam focusing around the 27 km LHC ring. CERN and CEA-Saclay began collaborating on the development and prototyping of these magnets in 1989. This resulted in five highly successful quadrupole units - also known as short straight sections - one of which was integrated for testing in String 1, and two others of the final design in String 2. Once the tests had confirmed the validity of the design and realization, the fabrication of the 360 cold masses had to be transferred to industry.The German firm ACCEL Instruments was entrusted both with the construction of the quadrupole magnets themselves, and with their assembly into the cold masses together with various combinations of corrector magnets produced by other European manufacturers. Here we see the first of the cold masses containing the MQ magnet of the machine arcs together with two types of corrector magnet ready for shipping to CERN. This first unit was delivered on 12 February.