Magnet Energy, Ramp down; MTBF

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josch222
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Joined: Sat Dec 12, 2009 4:10 pm

Magnet Energy, Ramp down; MTBF

Post by josch222 » Mon Aug 23, 2010 2:11 pm

Hi,

does anybody know wehre the stored energy goes when they ramp down
the current in the magnets?
If there is a quench it is absorbed with large air-cooled resistors, but they need
time to cool down and must be ready (cold) for a new run. That takes several hours
afair. So I think the energy must go something else.
Do they feed it back to the power grid?

Anybody heard about any kind of MTBF or other reliability prediction for the whole
accelerator complex?
MTBF seems not that high at the moment, more in the hours range.
I expected a lot of failures, after all they deal with a really huge amount of new and
rather old equipment. But it must be a bit frustrating if there is access after access
needed to repair lots of faulty equipment.

josch222

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