An Ultra-Low Temperature Transcritical R744 Refrigeration System for Future Detectors at CERN LHC

The cooling systems of the future tracking detectors of the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN will be entirely based on CO2 refrigeration technology. The system is a booster refrigeration system, composed of a two stage primary part with transcritical R744 equipment and a low temperature secondary CO2 pumped loop. The primary refrigeration sub-system installed on surface provides cold R744 at -53 degrees C to the CO2 pumped loops installed 100 m underground and rejects the heat exchanged. The process must be reliable and remain stable regardless of the amount of heat exchanged, which will amount to hundreds of kilowatts and is expected to vary throughout the lifetime of the detectors. The paper discusses the concept adopted for the innovative transcritical R744 cycle and describes the technical details of the first prototype built.