Cold Beam Vacuum Interconnects for the LHC Insertion Regions

The LHC machine is composed of arcs and insertion regions where superconducting magnets, working at temperatures of 1.9 K and 4.5 K, have flexibly interconnected beam vacuum chambers. These interconnects must respect strict requirements in terms of impedance, aperture, space optimization and reliability. A complete interconnect design was first developed for the arc regions, and from which a total of 20 variants have been created according to the different functional requirements of each pair of cryostats along the machine. All design features and manufacture processes were validated through extensive testing. Manufacture and assembly cost was minimised by using a modular interconnect design, with common components shared among different design variants. A detailed quality assurance structure was implemented in order to achieve the high level of reliability required. This paper presents the layout of cold beam vacuum interconnects along with details of development and testing performed to validate design and integration.