Reliability and Availability of Particle Accelerators: Concepts, Lessons, Strategy

This paper will present the results and latest status of an extensive effort to analyse and improve the reliability and availability of the LHC. After the introduction of basic concepts and definitions, the paper reviews the performance of the LHC in 2015-2017. A direct comparison of the luminosity production years 2016 and 2017 is presented, with a focus on the main differences in the observed failure modes. Based on the lessons learnt in this time window, expectations for the performance during future LHC runs are discussed. In particular, the thought process for the evaluation of the possible full energy exploitation of the LHC is described, considering relevant factors such as the expected availability loss and the risk associated to magnet training.