Realization of Airtightness for the Primary areas

16 DECEMBER,2021 | By Oliver Boettcher and the Est Area Rrenovation Core team

Christmas is approaching and the packing experience made when realizing the airtightness activities in the first half of 2021 as part of the East Area Renovation project becomes symbolic. To make the three volumes (primary area, T8a and T8b) airtight, more than 160 m² of roof surface had been wrapped using 650 m² of reinforced PVC film and a lot of scotch as like cover lids of huge Christmas parcels.

This “wrapping” of about 100 top shielding girders was only one of diverse measures of the entire airtightness task to fulfil the RP requirement assuring at -20 Pascal under pressure in the primary area during beam operation. And it was the first time at CERN that such a large area with about 500m³ of volume got to be prepared for operation at such a level of under pressure.

This was finally achieved with minimum ventilation power, thanks to the intensive collaboration within the EAR core team and all the measures realized with the help of highly performing service teams.