TT40 Damage during 2004 High Intensity SPS Extraction

During high intensity extraction on 25/10/04 an incident occurred in which the vacuum chamber of the TT40 magnet QTRF4002 was badly damaged. The beam was a 450 GeV full LHC injection batch of 3.4 1013 p+ in 288 bunches, and was extracted from SPS LSS4 with the wrong trajectory. Prior to the fatal extraction, problems had occurred over several hours during the setting-up, with beam-induced noise causing the extraction septum interlock to trip the power convertor, and also with the bumped beam position interlock. Deficiencies in the extraction setting-up process, in the interlocking and in the operational procedures used for the high-intensity test were contributing factors. In this note the incident causes are identified, the details reconstructed from the logged data, and the damage to the vacuum chamber analysed. The remedial measures which have already been taken are explained, and further recommendations made concerning the interlocking system performance and tests, as well as the operational procedures which must be adopted when commissioning with high intensities.