Vacuum performance of a carbon fibre cryosorber for the LHC LSS beam screen

A new carbon fibre material was developed at the Institute of Solid State Chemistry and Mechanochemistry at the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Science (SB RAS) to meet the large hadron collider (LHC) vacuum chamber. The material must have a large sorbing capacity, a certain pumping speed, a working temperature range between 5 and 20K, a low activation temperature (below room temperature), a certain size in order to fit into the limited space available and it should be easy to mount. The vacuum parameters of the LHC vacuum chamber prototype with a carbon fibre cryosorber mounted onto the beam screen were studied in the beam screen temperature range from 14 to 25K at the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics SB RAS. This carbon fibre material has shown sufficient sorption capacity for hydrogen at operational temperatures of the beam screen in the LHC long straight sections. It is also very important that this material does not crumble and makes a convenient fixation onto the beam screen in comparison to the widely used granulated charcoal. The problem of fluff and ways of reducing the quantity of fluff in the beam channel were studied. The results of these studies show that the carbon fibre material is a possible cryosorber-candidate for use in the LHC and other long vacuum system at cryogenic temperatures. The experimental set-up and results of measurements of the H//2 cryosorption capacity of this carbon fibre material are presented in this paper.