Engineering for the ATLAS Inner Detectors and the Route to a High Luminosity Upgrade

This document details the substantial individual contribution made by the author to the research & development of the ATLAS Experiment. Based at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator. ATLAS is one of two general-purpose detectors at the Large Hadron Collider; it investigates a wide range of physics, from the search for the Nobel Prize winning Higgs boson discovery to new extra dimensions and particles that could make up dark matter. At 46m long, 25m high and 25m wide, the 7000-tonne, 100m below ground ATLAS detector is the largest volume particle detector ever constructed. The author’s contribution to the construction & integration of the ATLAS Inner Detector (ID) is detailed with focus on the cooling systems.
Following years of operation, the ATLAS ID requires replacement due to radiation damage to electronic components and significant major infrastructure changes are required to operate effectively at higher luminosities. Planned high-luminosity upgrades to the LHC (HL-LHC) require huge increases in power to generate higher energy particle collisions needed for new scientific discoveries. Initial research began in 2005, exploring the possible construction of an ATLAS High-Luminosity Upgrade replacement of the existing ATLAS ID. The author was heavily involved in the construction of this project from the initial conceptual ideas, to the development of radiation hard semi-conductor device qualification, irradiation facility design, construction and operation and cooling system development.
Sharing a number of design philosophies with aerospace, defence and space science, particle detectors require lightweight materials with high strength. Development of modern particle physics detectors to enable new scientific discoveries requires pushing technological boundaries beyond conventional. This document and commentary demonstrate the author’s application of these technologies to the ATLAS ID and transference to the industrial domain, predominantly within aerospace and robotics.