LHC Beam Dump Performance in View of the High Luminosity Upgrade

The High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) project will increase the total beam intensity in the LHC by nearly a factor of two. Analysis and follow-up of recent operational issues as well as dedicated studies of the LHC Beam Dump System (LBDS) have been carried out to ensure the safe operation with HL-LHC parameters and to decide on possible hardware upgrades to meet the HL-LHC requirements. The fail-safe design must ensure the LBDS performance also for abnormal operation such as asynchronous beam dumps or failing dilution kickers. In this paper, we report on newly observed failure scenarios as the erratic firing of more than one dilution kicker, and discuss their consequences as well as possible mitigation measures in view of the high luminosity upgrade.