Saturation behaviour of the LHC NEG coated beam pipes

In the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC), about 6 km of the UHV beam pipe are at room temperature and serve as experimental or utility insertions. TiZrV non-evaporable getter (NEG) coating is used to maintain the design pressure during beam operation. Molecular desorption due to dynamic effects is stimulated during protons operation at high intensity. This phenomenon produces an important gas load from the vacuum chamber walls, which could lead to a partial or total saturation of the NEG coating. To keep the design vacuum performances and to schedule technical interventions for NEG reactivation, it is necessary to take into account all these aspects and to regularly evaluate the saturation level of the NEG coating. Experimental studies of a typical LHC vacuum sector were conducted in the laboratory in order to identify the best method to assess the saturation level of the beam pipe. Partial saturation of the NEG was performed and the effective pumping speed, transmission and capture probability are analysed.