The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the most recent and powerful accelerator constructed on the CERN site. The LHC consists of a 27 km circular tunnel, about 100 m underground, with eight sites positioned around the tunnel’s circumference. High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) is a new project aiming to upgrade the LHC, at Point 1 (ATLAS in Switzerland) & Point 5 (CMS in France), in order to maintain scientific progress and exploit its full capacity with new underground and surface structures.
At Point 1, the final lining in the US/UW17 has now been completed following the casting of the final lining in all UR/UA/UL galleries, including both UPR connections to the LHC tunnel.
The waterproofing has been applied in the PM17 shaft and the sliding formwork is currently being installed to cast the final lining in one continuous operation (24/7) as of next week.
At the surface, both SF17 and SHM17 buildings are being fitted out with interior acoustic insulation and awaiting skylights and façade louvers.
At Point 5, the final lining is completed in the main UR55 gallery and the teams are now concentrating on completing the final lining of the US/UW57 cavern.
Concrete works are approaching the end for building SF57 and waterproofing is ongoing on building SHM 57.
Site installations are mutating with the dismantling of the PM57's temporary shelter.
After that, the construction area will be free to install the special foundations of the SD, SE and SU57 buildings as of April 2021.
The HL-LHC design has been developed by the Joint Venture ORIGIN in Point 1 which includes Setec Tpi (France), Rocksoil (Italy), and CSD Engineers (Switzerland) and by Joint Venture LAP in Point 5 which includes Lombardi (Switzerland), Artelia (France) and Pini Swiss (Switzerland).
The construction works contracts were awarded by CERN in March 2018. The Joint Venture JVMM which includes Marti Tunnel AG (Switzerland), Marti GmbH (Germany) and Marti GmbH (Austria) secured the CHF67.7 million contract with a 53 months duration until 31/08/2022 for Point 1 (CH); the Consortium Implenia Baresel (CIB) secured the EUR58 million contract with a 54 months duration until 30/09/2022 for Point 5 (FR). Click here for further on the projects and fr/142 for tunnelbuilder archive. Visit https://hilumilhc.web.cern.ch/. 12/21.
