B513 Planning Meeting, 17th January 2003

Present:           Nigel Baddams, Yannick Body, Tony Cass, Anne Funken, Jukka Lindroos, Jose Miranda-Vizuete, Dave Underhill

1.             Previous Minutes

  1. Approved with minor corrections

2.             Substation Planning

  1. Tony reported on discussion that had taken place with Intel contacts to the CERN openlab. Apparently Intel set a power budget for processor chips—130W for server CPUs, 80W for desktop CPUs and 40W for portable CPUs. Chip designers must ensure that any features added will fit within this budget. On this basis, some of the more dramatic estimates for future power needs seem unrealistic. However, we must not be complacent either—a maximum possible load of 2.5MW gives little room for manoeuvre.
  1. The HVAC arrangements will need some modification in order to support the full equipment load for 10 minutes. Equally, the redundancy arrangements for the roof-mounted cooling stations also need to be understood. Redundancy is not needed for maintenance work (this can be carried out in Winter), but to understand the likely impact of failure on the machine room temperature and rate of increase.
  2. Jose met the design study bureau on Wednesday (15th January) to discuss the bunker design. Various suggestions have been made concerning ways to improve the design and to reduce costs.
    1. A sloping dalle would be better integrated with the access to the barn doors and also increase the free height above the false floor to 2.85 m at the side furthest from B513.
    2. Unfortunately, a drain pipe running through B513 parallel to the gallery technique would be cut by the planned caniveau into the UPS room. The best option is to shorten this caniveau, but this requires moving the entry to the UPS room which in turn requires reducing size of S-401 room by 2.5 m. Tony agreed to this proposal.
    3. The design bureau considers that the proposed tubes from the transformer rooms to the the technical gallery are problematic. However, there are, apparently, some openings into this gallery from behind the transformers which are blocked at present which could perhaps be used instead. The impact on the arrangement of cables needs to be understood.
    4. Use of load bearing internal walls would reduce the cost by some 30KCHF. In addition, without load bearing walls, the opening for the cables from the transformers is limited to 2.55 m, less than the 2.6 m required. The argument against load bearing walls previously was the potential need to remodel the bunker for a 4MW solution. Now, however, the 18kV room is anyway the correct size for a 4MW solution and we understand that the changes to the saferoom depend on the diesel backup situation—and that if any change is needed here it will a radical change, not a small increase in size. It was therefore accepted that we would relax the requirement for future internal remodelling and accept the use of load bearing internal walls.
  3. Even with all the cost reductions, however, the initial design bureau cost estimate is significantly higher than expected. Jose considers that this is because the unit prices used in the estimation are too high. If the unit costs of SPIE-Antirust are used instead, the price is closer to our estimate, but still some 200 KCHF more. Jose felt that the price would be reduced by open tendering—this is a significant project and construction companies need work.
  4. Tony emphasised that the reasons for the cost increase must be understood—and would, most likely, need to be clearly documented for the LCG project and directors. Although there is a cost increase due to the geological conditions near B513, most of the bunker cost increase is directly linked to the increase in substation space requirements. It was felt that little of this increase is due to any provision for a possible expansion to 4MW possibility. Most of the space increase is due to an increase in the number of 18kV cells and an increase in the size of the safe room now the HVAC requirements are better understood.

3.             AOB

  1. Work on the new emergency exit for the UPS battery room is scheduled to start on February 10th, although Losinger may start on the 3rd if this is more convenient for them.
  2. Jukka commented that some temporary modifications may be needed in order to ensure adequate smoke extraction provision for the hvac areas during construction work.
  3. Next meeting: 14:00 Wednesday 29th January.