CMS Solenoid Assembly

CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) is a general-purpose detector designed to run at the highest luminosity at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Its distinctive features include a 4 T superconducting solenoid with a 6 m diameter by 12.5 m long free bore, enclosed inside a 10,000-ton return yoke. The assembly of the solenoid on CERN site starts with the building up, the electrical and hydraulic connection of the 5 coil modules. After instrumentation cabling, the outer thermal shield is mounted. The cold mass is then swiveled and inserted inside the outer vacuum tank. The cold mass is supported from the outer vacuum tank by a set of titanium tie rods. After inserting the inner vacuum tank and its thermal shield, both end of the cryostat are closed. In parallel, the current leads and the cryogenic chimney are connected to the coil. This paper describes all these activities and in particular the checks performed at each step of the coil assembly