Master’s Thesis

Design and Development of the Beam Position Monitor Calibration

Test Bench
For testing the electrical parameters of the new High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC)
Beam Position Monitors using the Concurrent Engineering Approach

by

Heeral Bhatt

at

Beams Instrumentation Group, Beams Department (BE-BI)

Organisation Européenne pour la Recherche Nucléaire (CERN), Switzerland

under the supervision of

Gerhard Schneider Maria-Paz Zorzano Mier

Mechanical Engineer, BE-BI Professor
CERN, Switzerland LTU, Sweden
gerhard.schneider@cern.ch maria-paz.zorzano.mier@ltu.se

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Masters Techniques Spatiales et Instrumentation

as part of the

Joint European Master in Space Science and Technology (SpaceMaster Round-14)

Date: 12th October, 2020

 Summary

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) upgrade to high luminosity, also referred to as the HL-LHC Project, shall ob-
serve an increase in the number of particles in the beam. Consequently, the need arises to upgrade beam diagnostic
instruments used to measure beam parameters with high accuracy. Beam Position Monitors (BPMs) measure beam
position throughout the accelerator, and for that they need to have their electrical parameters characterised. This
characterisation of the BPMs is conducted on a calibration test stand by passing a high frequency pulse in the
range of 2MHz-352.2MHz, on a stretched wire to simulate the beam in the accelerator. To calibrate BPMs, their
mechanical references must be related to their electrical center. This relation happens from the BPM reference to
the BPM axis, on which the wire is aligned, hence, theoretically simulating the accelerator beam axis at the central
axis of the BPM body.

The current test stand does not ensure wire parallelism during calibration and also does not provide a standardised
solution for it. New components need to be integrated with each new design of the BPM, consuming extra time,
effort and costs. This work aims at designing a standardised calibration tool for the characterisation of the elec-
trical parameters of the new HL-LHC BPMs within an accuracy of 50µm in the time and cost constraints of this
project.

The use of project management tools with the Concurrent Engineering (CE) philosophy helped in building the
structure of the report, where the development of the design procedure was divided into different phases. The
study of BPMs, their calibration and the current test bench helped in the understanding and identification of the
need for building a new test bench. A requirement analysis was conducted, where technical requirements were
derived from the user requirements, leading to the formation of the design objectives. A market investigation
and engineering research was conducted to propose new solutions. Four proposals, displaying different physics
techniques, were presented. After a solution analysis conducted through a Multi-Criteria Selection Matrix, the
desired method that complied with the scope, cost and time constraints was the mechanically attached tool. For
the attachment of this tool, alignment techniques were explored and different BPM mechanical references such as
its circular flange surfaces, body axis, metrological reference surfaces and outer body edges, were scrutinized.

The new tool design was an assembly of 3 pieces made of stainless steel, using the same capacitive alignment
technique as for one of the existing BPMs from the current test bench. The BPM reference identified to be used
was the BPM metrological reference surface, for ease in the determination of the mechanical and electrical center
of the BPM. This surface is a common reference for the users of the BPM Test Bench, the metrology team aligning
the BPM in the accelerator and the operators of the accelerator identifying the beam position. The common use
of this reference reduces the overall inaccuracies in measurement between BPM calibration and installation. The
detailed design was elaborated and analysed using a dimensional analysis, a tolerance stack analysis and a finite
element analysis of the new components added to the test bench. The tolerance stack analysis helped in quanti-
fying the overall errors in the manufacturing of the BPMs and the proposed tool. The final total tolerance values
between the BPM and the capacitive tool was in the order of 103µm for the top tool and 108µm for the bottom
tool.

These results from the tolerance stack show that the users would have to consider a more accurate technique in
the measurement of the BPM-tool center. This also gave rise to the need of a new tool design which would reduce
the number of interface features in the assembly of the tool to reduce the errors during the sum of the tolerances.
The work on the tool is still ongoing with regards to the design of the test bench and shall see the building of
a prototype, its metrological testing and the estimation of its repeatability error. The future scope of the BPM
Calibration Test Bench Design project is to verify and validate the final testing configuration, designed from the
conclusions drawn in this report.

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 Résumé

La mise à niveau du Grand collisionneur de hadrons (LHC) à haute luminosité, également appelée projet HL-LHC,
permettra d’observer une augmentation du nombre de particules dans le faisceau. Par conséquent, il est nécessaire
de moderniser les instruments de diagnostic du faisceau utilisés pour mesurer les paramètres du faisceau avec une
grande précision. Les moniteurs de position du faisceau (BPM) mesurent la position du faisceau dans l’ensemble
de l’accélérateur, et pour cela ils doivent avoir leurs paramètres électriques caractérisés. Cette caractérisation des
BPM est effectuée sur un banc d’essai d’étalonnage en faisant passer une impulsion à haute fréquence dans la
gamme de 2MHz-352,2MHz, sur un fil tendu pour simuler le faisceau dans l’accélérateur. Pour calibrer les BPM,
leurs références mécaniques doivent être liées à leur centre électrique. Cette relation se produit à partir de la
référence du BPM à l’axe du BPM, sur lequel le fil est aligné, simulant ainsi théoriquement l’axe du faisceau de
l’accélérateur au niveau de l’axe central du corps du BPM.

Le banc d’essai actuel n’assure pas le parallélisme des fils lors de l’étalonnage et ne fournit pas non plus de
solution standardisée pour celui-ci. De nouveaux composants doivent être intégrés à chaque nouvelle conception
du BPM, ce qui demande du temps, des efforts et des coûts supplémentaires. Ce travail vise à concevoir un outil
d’étalonnage standardisé pour la caractérisation des paramètres électriques des nouveaux BPM HL-LHC avec une
précision de 50µm, compte tenu des contraintes de temps et de coût de ce projet.

L’utilisation d’outils de gestion de projet avec la philosophie de l’ingénierie concourante (CE) a aidé à construire
la structure du rapport, où le développement de la procédure de conception a été divisé en différentes phases.
L’étude des BPM, leur étalonnage et le banc d’essai actuel ont aidé à comprendre et à identifier la nécessité de
construire un nouveau banc d’essai. Une analyse des besoins a été réalisée, dans laquelle les exigences techniques
ont été dérivées des besoins des utilisateurs, ce qui a conduit à la formation des objectifs de conception. Une étude
de marché et une recherche d’ingénierie ont été menées pour proposer de nouvelles solutions. Quatre propositions,
présentant différentes techniques de physique, ont été présentées. Après une analyse des solutions réalisée à l’aide
d’une matrice de sélection multicritères, la méthode souhaitée qui respectait le champ d’application, le coût et
les contraintes de temps était l’outil mécanique. Pour la fixation de cet outil, des techniques d’alignement ont
été explorées et différentes références mécaniques de BPM telles que les surfaces circulaires des brides, l’axe du
corps, les surfaces de référence métrologique et les bords extérieurs du corps ont été examinées.

Le nouvel outil était un assemblage de 3 pièces en acier inoxydable, utilisant la même technique d’alignement
capacitif que pour l’un des BPM existants du banc d’essai actuel. La référence du BPM identifiée pour être
utilisée était la surface de référence métrologique du BPM, pour faciliter la détermination du centre mécanique et
électrique du BPM. Cette surface est une référence commune pour les utilisateurs du banc d’essai BPM, l’équipe
de métrologie alignant le BPM dans l’accélérateur et les opérateurs de l’accélérateur identifiant la position du
faisceau. L’utilisation commune de cette référence réduit les imprécisions globales de mesure entre l’étalonnage
du BPM et l’installation. La conception détaillée a été élaborée et analysée à l’aide d’une analyse dimensionnelle,
d’une analyse de la pile de tolérance et d’une analyse par éléments finis des nouveaux composants ajoutés au banc
d’essai. L’analyse de la pile de tolérance a permis de quantifier les erreurs globales dans la fabrication des BPM
et de l’outil proposé. Les valeurs de tolérance totales finales entre le BPM et l’outil capacitif étaient de l’ordre de
103µm pour l’outil supérieur et de 108µm pour l’outil inférieur.

Ces résultats de la pile de tolérance montrent que les utilisateurs devraient envisager une technique plus précise
dans la mesure du centre de l’outil BPM. Cela a également donné lieu à la nécessité d’une nouvelle conception
d’outil qui réduirait le nombre de caractéristiques d’interface dans l’assemblage de l’outil afin de réduire les erreurs
lors de la somme des tolérances. Le travail sur l’outil est toujours en cours en ce qui concerne la conception du banc
d’essai et verra la construction d’un prototype, son test métrologique et l’estimation de son erreur de répétabilité.
La portée future du projet de conception du banc d’essai d’étalonnage du BPM est de vérifier et de valider la
configuration d’essai finale, conçue à partir des conclusions tirées dans le présent rapport.

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Table of Contents
1 Introduction 4

2 Project Management 6

3 PHASE 0: Study Period 8

3.1 Beam Position Monitors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.2 BPM Calibration Test Bench . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.3 Current Test Bench . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.4 Need for a New Test Bench . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

4 PHASE 1: Design Specifications 15

4.1 Requirements Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.2 Design Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

5 PHASE 2: Engineering Research 16

6 PHASE 3: Conceptual Design 18

6.1 Proposed Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
6.2 Solution Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

7 PHASE 4: Detailed Design 20

7.1 Design Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
7.2 Engineering Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

8 Conclusion and Future Scope 29

References 30

List of Acronyms

BPM Beam Position Monitor

CE Concurrent Engineering
CERN Organisation Européenne pour la Recherche Nucléaire
CMM Coordinate Measuring Machines
ELENA Extra Low Energy Antiproton ring
EM Electromagnetic
FEA Finite Element Analysis
FOV Field of View
HL-LHC High Luminosity - Large Hadron Collider
LEIR Low Energy Ion Ring
LHC Large Hadron Collider
LINAC4 Linear Accelerator 4
RSS Root Sum Square
TRD Technical Requirement Document
URD User Requirement Document

1 Introduction
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), colloquially known as the wonder of the modern era, has successfully displayed
some aspects of high energy physics in great detail. It has produced high energy proton-proton collisions, which
along with experiments like ATLAS and CMS, discovered the cornerstone of the Standard Model of particle
physics, the Higgs Boson. It now holds ambitions to further the energy frontier by a factor of 10, to provide
more accurate measurements of new particles and enable the observation of rare processes occurring below the
current sensitivity level[1]. This new venture in the journey of the LHC, also known as the High Luminosity

4
LHC (HL-LHC) requires for higher measurement accuracy throughout the equipment in the accelerator complex.
Monitoring devices or beam diagnostic techniques are essential in achieving a beam useful for study in physics.
Such a beam is highly sensitive to imperfections in the accelerator facility, rendering its continuous tracking vital.
The beam can be tracked by the use of different beam diagnostics equipment measuring specific beam parameters,
while remaining nondestructive to the flow of particles. As a whole, the instrumentation used to measure beam
properties such as the beam intensity, position, transverse and longitudinal size and shape[2] are called as Beam
Position Monitors (BPMs) or Pick-Ups (PUs). Prior to the installation of the BPMs in the LHC, they must be
calibrated on a test stand which ensures the knowledge of the BPM electrical parameters, necessary to identify
the beam position in the tunnel. The BPM Calibration Test Stand at CERN is a customized testing rig for the
measurement of the electrical parameters, such as the sensitivity and electrical center, for all the BPMs used here.

Figure 1: Schematic Design of the BPM Calibration Test Bench

Having studied the theory behind BPMs and their calibration methods, it can be understood that the need to build
a new test bench arises from the fact that the new HL-LHC BPMs have a new design. This geometry is unlike
any BPM body designed so far at CERN because of its octagonal aperture and hexagonal body. These BPMs
have internal carbon coatings which require caution in handling of the BPM and during test bench operations. To
calibrate the BPMs with high accuracy and maintain uniformity in the measurements on the test bench, a new
alignment tool must be designed. It is observed on the current test bench that the lack of a stable support structure
adds to the mechanical inaccuracies in the calibration process. Also, the current test bench lacks a standard
technique of calibration across all BPMs used at CERN. This description has been further explained in Figure 1.
This project concentrates on conducting a study of the current test stand and on the calibration techniques used on
it. This development of a novel alignment tool will first be used for the new HL-LHC BPMs and later be extended
to all the BPMs at CERN. The objective of this work is to design a test bench for the calibration of the new

Figure 2: Design Methodology

HL-LHC BPMs by relating the mechanical reference of the BPMs to their electrical center within a measurement
accuracy of 50µm and in the cost-scope-time constraints provided by the users of the bench. This would have to
be done by conducting a preliminary study on BPMs, the current test bench and their calibration on the bench. The
method in the designing of the new test bench will be on the template developed by using project management tools

5
as shown in Figure 2. The philosophy of the widely used Concurrent Engineering approach (CE) shall provide the
format for project organization and life cycle by implementing the basic steps of initialization, planning, execution
and closing as shown in Figure 3. The green tick marks on the steps indicate the philosophy of the unfolding of the
project whereas the consequent blocks indicate the working methodology employed to adapt these theories. The
Initialization Step is the initiation of the project that must be done by defining the scope, constraints, participating
members, authorities responsible and the deliverables of the project. A document which defines all these factors
is the "Project Mandate Document" and can be found in the appendix for further reading. The Planning Step is
the organization of the project with careful consideration to the project mandate. The Execution Stage is where
the application of CE in the planning will help determine the different phases in the design process. The Closure
Step is essential to check if the project goals are compliant with the closure status of the project. Agreeing upon
all the documentation presented at the end of the project, comprising of several validation techniques, the project
can proceed to closure.
The roles assigned to the engineer intern in this project were to identify the need of the new test bench and for-
mulate the prerequisites in its design, for which a preliminary study on BPMs and the test bench were conducted.
Existing alignment tools and calibration techniques were analyzed and adapted in the consideration of the solutions
to be proposed. The user requirements were listed, from which technical requirements were extracted and thus,
design objectives were formulated. An investigation into the subject with regards to the industry and an extensive
literature review was done, that created the foundation for the future course of the project. With the knowledge on
different concepts such as alignment techniques, use of lasers and sensors, use of mechanical tools in alignment
and image processing, different solutions were proposed to standardise the calibration technique across all CERN
BPMs. The idea of relating BPM references was explored and the most viable solution with respect to the user
constraints was finally selected with a thorough selection process using a Multi-Selection Criteria Matrix and its
further verification listing the pros and cons of the proposed techniques. Engineering tools such as FEA (Finite
Element Analysis), dimensional analysis, tolerance stack analysis, etc were used to identify the details in the im-
plementation of the solution selected. Project Management application using the CE Approach was conducted,
based on the previous knowledge on these subjects developed during the master’s course. Software training on
SmarTeam helped in the design the 2D and 3D models for the work. Any extension of this work can be found in
the attached appendix.

Figure 3: Project Management Template

2 Project Management
This section is the formal initialization of the product design where the mandate is constructed using the holistic
cost-time-scope constraints of the project. Furthermore we define the structure, organization and life cycle with
the CE philosophy, explained further. The project management implementation can be summarised as seen in
Figure 3.
Concurrent Engineering Approach
The traditional approach of performing tasks in a linear order is referred to as the Sequential Engineering or the
"Over the Wall" approach. At first glance, this seems as the most intuitive way for product design and development,

6
however, highly specialized and systematic parallel working methods prove to be a more efficient technique.
Concurrent engineering or the "Breaking Down Walls" approach comprises of the liberating parallel method of
Product Design and Product Development by making all principles present in the unfolding of the project. The
scope of this report is to discuss the product design, the product will be soon developed after the completion
of this phase. The concurrent engineering philosophy is based on the key factors of contributing to the project
in an overall time reduction, cost reduction, improvement of product quality and fulfilling customer needs. The
European Space Agency (ESA) defines Concurrent Engineering as follows[3]:
Concurrent Engineering (CE) is a systematic approach to integrated product development that em-
phasises the response to customer expectations. It embodies team values of co-operation, trust and
sharing in a manner that decision making is by consensus from the beginning of the product life-cycle.
Principles and Phases of Concurrent Engineering

Figure 4: Phases of the BPM Project - Life Cycle

The principles of the concurrent engineering process can be identified as the people (the participants), the process
(the concept of project management followed) and the tools and technology (the hardware and software, employed
in the development of the idea). For the BPM Calibration Test Bench, the Participants were the Users (the

Figure 5: Project Timeline

7
Beam Position Section, BE-BI-BP), the Designers (the Mechanics and Logistics Section, BE-BI-ML) and the
Measurements Team (the Metrology Section, EN-MME-ME). The Process includes Project Management
techniques of Early Problem Discovery (rectifying all problems before proposing solutions) and Early Decision
Making (decisions taken along the design process to save time). The tools used are Smarteam-CATIA V5 (Part
Design, Assembly, Drawings-2D,3D), ANSYS 2019 (Static Structural Analysis), MS Office Tools (Presentation),
VidyoConnect (Online Meetings) and LaTex (Documentation). The main phases in product design are defined
as the project life cycle. The Market Investigation comprises of the study of the concepts-existing or new, vital
in product design, including an industrial survey and a literature review. Design Specifications is where the
user requirements are received and the requisite technical requirements from the design team are given back for
validation. Conceptual Design is the phase where the design team tries to converge to the solution, following the
user’s requests. Different proposals are made, of which the most suitable solution is selected. Detailed Design
is the design of the solution selected and its analysis to proceed to the product development. The phases for the
BPM Test Bench are shown in Figure 4 which displays the parallel and iterative nature of each design stage. The
project mandate (document in appendix for further reading) is a document which states the intent of this thesis,
the establishment of the scope, the participating members, the responsible authorities, etc. The phases of the
project comprise the project life cycle constructed on the basis of the CE approach. The teams responsible in the
development of the project are also identified here and the cyclic flow of the ideation process can be seen. Each
phase is built to follow the methodology discussed previously, i.e. the initiation, planning, execution, control and
lastly the closing of the phase. Each phase is initialized on the basis of the scope defined for it and ends with
an official closure report being submitted to the user for validation. These are also the major milestones in the
decision-making process as seen with the project timeline in Figure 5. The GANTT chart can be found in the
Appendix for further reading.

3 PHASE 0: Study Period

Scope: The study period will review the problem statement, the development of the new test bench. Here, we will
create the knowledge base necessary to work on designing the calibration unit.
Investigation Questions: What are Beam Position Monitors (BPMs)? How are BPMs calibrated? What are the
current test bench specifications? What is the need for a new test bench?
Phase Closure: Submission of a Case Summary Document accumulating all the intellectual resources needed to
start working on the development of the test bench.

3.1 Beam Position Monitors

Figure 6: HL-LHC Beam Position Monitors (Left: Q1 Stripline electrodes, Right: D2 Button electrodes)

As discussed previously, BPMs are beam diagnostics instruments which can monitor beam position, profile and
intensity[2]. They give us information on the spatial position of the beam at the monitor location. In LINACs and
transfer lines, BPMs are used to measure and correct beam trajectories while for synchronous accelerators, BPMs

8
are distributed all around the ring to calculate the closed orbit, for trajectory measurements and for accelerator
physics experiments.[2] BPMs are designed based on the location of their installation. Thousands of BPMs are
installed throughout accelerators to track beam position which helps us identify the characteristics of the travelling
particle beam. BPMs are of several different types, each having the same basic components - cooling coils to

Figure 7: Operation of a BPM

maintain low temperatures and a vacuum chamber jacket to create electromagnetic isolation of the beam from outer
electronics[4][5], as shown in Figure 10. BPMs have reference surfaces on their body which are used in positioning
them in the accelerator. The feedthroughs allow cables to pick up data from the electrodes when the beam passes
through the BPM. The electrodes interact with the incoming beam; charge distribution and voltage differences
created due to this passage give rise to a signal in them, directly related to the characteristics of the travelling
beam. There are two types of BPMs that shall be studied in the course of this project - Electrostatic or Capacitive
BPMs and Electromagnetic BPMs. As the name suggests, the former work on the capacitive principle of charge
accumulation on button electrodes causing a potential difference across them. In the case of an electromagnetic
BPM, the induced magnetic field due to the differential charge on the stripline electrodes creates a current recepted
by the feedthroughs of the BPM. In both cases, four electrode arrangements are placed at 90° from one another.
The potential differences along H and V, either due to charge accumulation or an induced magnetic field, when
normalized across the sum of these voltages helps identify beam position in the tunnel[6][7] as can be seen in
Figure 7.

3.2 BPM Calibration Test Bench

BPM Calibration test stands are used in the characterization of the electrical parameters of BPMs. Prior knowledge
on these electrical parameters of the BPM, must be developed from the test bench, to find the position of the beam
in the accelerator. There are several kinds of BPM Test Benches all around the world[8][9]. Some calibrate BPMs
vertically, while some horizontally. Some test benches move the wire while others move the BPM body. The most
common way of simulating the beam in the test rig is using the stretched wire method[2]. The method of BPM
calibration varies across different accelerator facilities. Beam position is a point in the 2D plane where the third
dimension is time, hence while discussing the position we would want it in the coordinates (x,y). Assuming that
the z-axis is along the beam direction, having identified x and y should be enough to locate the beam. In reality
the beam we get is shifted in this 2D plane from what would be expected. This offset in the beam position can
be primarily traced back to two major reasons - mechanical anomalies causing a mechanical offset and electrical
anomalies causing an electrical offset. The BPM has two centers, the mechanical center and the electrical
center and the offsets defined are the errors in the detection of these centers. The mechanical center is on the
axis of the BPM body while the electrical center is the center of the four electrodes. The mechanical center of
the BPM is never the geometrical center (0,0), as the origin of the BPM design. This owes to the manufacturing
tolerances, material warping and deformations during welding practices. The metrology team identifies the center
of the BPM inlet by the use of highly precise Coordinate Measurement Machines (CMMs) with respect to the
BPM reference surface. This determines the mechanical offset, but the electrical offset determination requires
an elaborate procedure. The shift in the electrical center of the BPM occurs due to production errors arising at

9
 Figure 8: Steps in BPM Calibration

the time of the installation of the electrode due to a misalignment or defect in them. The electrodes might also
be faulty from the time of their fabrication and assembly. The error could also be due to the fact of a faulty
feedthrough connection, cables or connectors. The actual position of the beam can be given by Equation 2.

(x, y)actual ≡ (x, y)measured − (x, y)of f set (1)

(x, y)of f set ≡ (x, y)mechanical + (x, y)electrical (2)

The electrical offset is determined on the calibration test bench by the use of the Σ&∆, Sigma- Delta method[7].
The main steps in the calibration of BPMs are as described in Figure 8. After determining the center for wire
initialization, the origin of the motor is set to this new point. The stretched wire is connected to a network
analyzer and a pulse is made to pass through it. The linear stages make steps along X and Y axes and voltage
readings of the four electrodes, VH+ , VH− , VV + , VV − , are measured by the network analyzer. The ∆ and Σ values
are measured next, as denoted in Equation 5. The calculations ahead are done for the H or X direction. The same
calculations can be repeated for V or Y direction.

∆H = VH+ − VH− (3)

ΣH = VH+ + VH− + VV + + VV − (4)
   
∆ VH+ − VH−
= (5)
Σ H VH+ + VH− + VV + + VV −

Having achieved (∆/Σ)H from our calculations as shown above, we plot these values against the increments in
the wire position where the different voltages are measured. Linear interpolation of these values gives the equation
of a line of the type as shown in Equation 6.
 
∆
y = mx + c, y≡ and x ≡ Wire Position (6)
Σ H

Linear Interpolation is a requisite that the BPM operators give to the calibration test bench technicians, it is a
technique for the normalization of the collected data. Some BPMs require higher order curve fittings which
increase the accuracy of the BPM sensitivity and of the offsets. As can be seen in Figure 9 which is a sample plot
obtained during the calibration of the BPM PU27 on the current test bench, the measurement for the highest offset
is considered for linear fitting (green line). As can be seen, the sensitivity and offsets in X/H or Y/V obtained from
the linear interpolation are forwarded to the BPM operators in the tunnel to estimate the beam position.

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 Figure 9: Plots of the ∆/Σ vs Wire Position along X-Y Direction and the 250ns pulse used in wire calibration

3.3 Current Test Bench

Figure 10: Components of the BPM Test Bench (BPM images from SmarTeam CATIA V5)

As seen in Figure 10, the BPM Test Bench can be divided into the platform, the BPMs calibrated with the help
of the platform, and the alignment tools necessary for the alignment of the BPM body with the wire center. The
electronics and specific software accompaniments shall be discussed with the physical component that they are
used with. The coordinate system followed is marked on the platform as can be seen in Figure 10.
The Platform: As seen in Figure 10, the platform can be broadly studied in five major sub-parts. The specifications
of these components are listed in Table 1. The platform comprises of the Optical Bench, designed for laser
and optics related experiments. The motorized Linear Stages, the NEWPORT M-ILS200HA are translation
motors that are stacked together (one over the other) to achieve two-axis X-Y translation of the wire. The bi-
directional mobility of the wire was desired since moving the BPM platform was more expensive, critical and
difficult to achieve, owing to some of the heavier BPMs weighing over 40kg. The linear stages have a dynamic
load rating of less than 25kg and they are only used for the movement of the wire assembly which weighs 2kg.
Measurement steps of about 10µm in the X and Y direction on the test bench can be achieved, necessary to fulfil
the calibration travel range. The uni-directional repeatability of these motors is 0.4µm, which remains the same
for the saddled assembly as the centers of the two motors are aligned. The Cage around the test bench shields the
calibration unit from electromagnetic (EM) disturbances and protects the entire system from external disturbances
such as background signals and mechanical vibrations. The cage is a bolted assembly of five, perforated, 1mm

11
thick aluminium plates, all around the test bench. The problem of background noise adds to the errors in the
measurements of the test bench. The perforated sheets do not provide complete isolation to the disturbances but

Table 1: Technical Specifications of Platform Components

it keeps the air pressure difference on both sides minimised, resulting in minimal air turbulence over the test
bench. These sheets are a good compromise between EM shielding and the air turbulence adding to the overall
background noise. The test bench uses the stretched wire technique to simulate the beam in the accelerator
complex, on the calibration test stand. The wire used here is a 0.2mm Tungsten wire which is stretched and
excited to a continuous wave excitation of frequencies ranging from 2MHz to 352.2MHz. The wire is attached to
the rectangular frame with the help of Thorlabs attachment pieces on either ends. The top attachment of the wire
has a spring which allows for the wire to receive enough tension as is needed for the passage of the pulse on the
stretched wire. The bottom attachment of the wire is a Thorlabs attachment piece on which a 3D printed block is
mounted. The 3D printed piece is glued with an SMA connector which allows for the pulse to move through the
wire. The structural members are all the columns used to place the BPMs, mount the tools and manipulate their
spatial position. There are vertical members which provide the base for the placement of the BPMs on the test
bench and the rotating plates allow for the manipulation of the BPM and the alignment tools.

Figure 11: BPM Placement on the Current Test Bench

BPMs: The current bench was designed such that any BPM across the CERN accelerators could be calibrated
on one side-top or bottom of the BPM, however, the specificity of certain BPMs makes this a difficult task where
specific attachments have to be incorporated in the alignment and calibration of the BPMs. The BPM is placed on
the test bench on a rotating platform for the ease in attachment and connected using their reference surfaces. The

12
placement of the BPMs on the test bench can be seen in Figure 11.
Alignment Tool: During calibration, it is important to align the BPM, identify this center and conduct the stretched
wire calibration taking the identified center as the origin, for all future findings. The identified center serves as the
initial point to which the wire is centered before the calibration procedure is conducted. This origin is found by
several methods as shown in Figure 12, the optical fork and the capacitive tool.

Figure 12: Current Alignment Tools

The current technique of initialising the setup of the test bench is to place the BPM on the platform and adjust the
wire. The wire is initialised at the identified mechanical centre of the BPM (wire is coincident with the BPM axis).
Once the operator places the BPM on the test bench, the wire adjustments are done using an optical fork alignment
tool that is configured to be able to place the wire along the geometrical center of the bench within ±25µm, but
the precision of this tool varies up to 1mm. This geometrical centre is assumed to be the centre of the platform
and the position defined between the platform and the vertical member of the frame. Ideally, the system must not
have any errors and the only additional inconsistency in the reading must come from the repeatability error of the
motors which is of the order of 0.7 µm, bidirectionally. The optical fork is mounted on the vertical member using
an attachment to allow its movement along the length of the column. As seen in Figure 13, the optical fork is a

Figure 13: Optical Fork Device[10]

device which uses photomicrosensors to identify the location of the wire. The wire is centered with reference to
the body of the optical fork device mounted on the vertical member of the BPM. These photomicrosensors are
sensitive to light and are usually used in xerox machines and paper guiding techniques[10]. The photomicrosensor

13
is a transistor working like a switch. When the photomicrosensor detects an obstruction in the line of sight between
the two faces of the U, there is a voltage drop in the overall circuit, thereby allowing us to know whether the said
obstruction is in the U gap. The photomicrosensor used here has an opening of 0.6mm. The GUI for the handling

Figure 14: Optical Fork Alignment

of this system is made on LabVIEW. The readings are repeated thrice along the vertical column, on which the
optical fork is supported and bought to a mean value. This value is stored as the initial position of the motor. As
seen in Figure 14, for the measurements, the platform needs to be rotated each time the readings for two axes are
achieved. It is important to note this point because such motion while rotating the entire system creates errors
in the initialization point determination. The optical fork is an innovative solution however the rotation of the
platform with the BPM on it, disturbs the configuration of the initialization of the BPM on its resting surface. As
the working principle of this device is the effective operation of the photomicrosensors, the lab has to be dark
as the sensor would be very sensitive to any background light. Given the dimensions of the photomicrosensor,
it is very difficult to solder the two sensors in geometrically perpendicular planes. As the optical fork reads
point measurements, wire parallelism cannot be ensured. The use of the optical fork alignment tool has several
steps to be followed in the overall alignment of the wire which gives rise to inaccuracy in measurements and
working inefficiency. For very wide BPMs, there was a need to remove the vertical member as can also be seen in
configuration 2 in Figure 11. The method of aligning BPMs in such an arrangement required for the manufacturing
of a different tool, a capacitive tool as can be seen in Figure 15.

Figure 15: Capacitive Tool Alignment for the LEIR BPM (Tool images made in CATIA V5)

The working principle of this tool is very similar to a miniaturised BPM. The four surfaces formed due to the

14
pattern on the tool are symmetrically centered working like the four electrodes of the BPM. Using this tool, the
BPM does not need the vertical column anymore, as this tool directly rests on the BPM body. The network analyzer
is connected to the wire and capacitance is measured while moving the wire along H and V directions. While
designing this tool, thought was put into letting such movement be completely obstruction free and seamless, for
which slits are provided beyond the measurement circle in the middle as shown in Figure 15. The central circular
opening of the capacitive tool is 20mm. The capacitance measured by the wire is known to be 450fF at 9.5mm in
either direction from the tool center. Measurements are done to move the wire along H and V until the measured
capacitance is 450fF. Having moved the wire, the points where this capacitance value is reached are recorded.
These values are subtracted (H+ - H-) or (V+ - V-) and the new center is found. As the placement of the tool aligns
its center to that of the BPM body, it discards all the errors in measurement coming from the mechanical support
structure.

3.4 Need for a New Test Bench

On the current setup, all measurements of aligning the BPM axis parallel to the Z-axis of the test bench have to
be done with a fixed Z-axis reference. The vertical member marked 1 in Figure 11 acts as the reference for the
parallelism between the wire and the test bench along the Z-axis. The optical fork used to ensure wire position
and parallelism between the BPM axis and the wire is mounted on it which leads to positional inaccuracies in
our measurements. This member can be operated with the 4-M3 adjustment screws at the base, causing difficulty
in their accessibility, furthermore, leading to the loss of straightness of the member. Hence the vertical member
must be replaced. As discussed before, the optical fork alignment does not ensure accuracy, hence other aligning
methods must be integrated on the new test bench. The Capacitive Tool design has only ever been done once,
for the LEIR BPMs. Such a tool makes the calibration process simple and cost effective with improved accuracy
in measurement. The test bench must be made such that the tool does not harm the internal coatings on the
BPMs. The new BPMs have an octagonal aperture and a hexagonal body that need very specific handling while
calibration. Also, as they are the high luminosity BPMs, they need to be more precisely measured. One of the
problems that the operator faces while placing the BPM on the circular setup and preparing it for the experiment
is the continuous pulling of the slew bearing under the rotating platform. The rotation of the BPM is essential
to identify the wire centre using the Optical Fork leading to disturbances in the positioning of the BPM on the
platform. This necessitates the use of a system which does not have many moving parts.

4 PHASE 1: Design Specifications

Scope: The user requirements are discussed here and the technical constraints for the design of the calibration
test stand are formulated. This phase will concentrate on developing the design objectives on which all future
solution proposals and selection processes will depend on.
Investigation Questions: What are the user requirements? How can technical specifications be extracted from
these user requirements? What are the design objectives formulated from these specifications?
Phase Closure: The submission of two documents, the Specification Document and the Design Objectives Vali-
dation Document marks the end of this phase. The Specifications Document lists down all the user requirements
received and mentions the technical requirements distilled from them. The Design objectives Validation Document
marks the validation of the design objectives formulated from the requirements.

4.1 Requirements Analysis

The user requirements are summarized in Table 2 giving us the important parameters in the designing of the test
stand and also in the selection criteria of the solutions. The technical requirements are the specific technical
details needed in understanding the user requirements better. The design process being a parallel approach made
the development of this phase very important. This period of understanding the requirements to the core of the
user needs, ran all along the development of the project as the users are an important principle, in the development
of this project. Table 2 shows the direct traceability between the user and technical requirements. The structure of
the technical requirements is such that there is simplicity and traceability between what the users want and what
the designers understand.

15
 Figure 16: Defining the Design Objectives

4.2 Design Objectives

Figure 17: HL-LHC BPMs to be Calibrated on the Test Bench (BPM images from SmarTeam CATIA V5)

The cost, scope and time are the important aspects in the definition of a project. Constructing the Design Objectives
on such a template would lead to more specific actions to reach the goal of designing the test bench as can be seen
in Figure 16. It is clear that the test bench is strictly to be designed to test the HL-LHC BPMs. There is an
ambiguity in the user requirements of testing all BPMs which was clarified as follows: the test bench must have
the possibility of using the previous frame and structural members for the testing of BPMs other than the HL-LHC
BPMs. It was also ensured that the same concept could be extended to other BPMs to be used at CERN once it is
verified and validated on the HL-LHC BPMs. The HL-LHC BPMs to be calibrated on the new test bench are the
Q1 Stripline Electrode BPMs, Q2a D1 Stripline Electrode BPMs and the D2 Button Electrode BPMs as they have
similar reference surfaces. The pulse on the wire was decided to be around 400MHz in frequency as opposed to
the range of 2MHz-352.2MHz owing to the high luminosity upgrade of the beam (more number of particles).

5 PHASE 2: Engineering Research

Scope: The engineering research is a two part research: Market Research and Benchmarking. Market research
is the industrial analysis of components that can be considered to improve the accuracy of the test bench. Bench-
marking is to baseline past work that becomes the foundation of the development of this project.
Investigation Questions: What are the important considerations in conducting a Market Research? What are the
papers identified to benchmark for this project?
Phase Closure: The submission of a Research Summary Document brings together the market investigation on
the new or existing components for the test bench, and mentions the benchmark projects, papers and concepts
that shall be taken into while proposing viable solutions marks the end of this phase, thus marking the end of this
phase.
In the strategic development of this project, it is necessary to conduct a market survey on the available techniques
to propose different viable solutions, keeping in mind the importance of the Cost-Scope-Time trio. Reading rele-
vant literature and benchmarking them as the foundation of our future developments is equally important. From

16
 Table 2: User and Technical Requirements Analysis

the preliminary studies of the BPM Test Bench, we came to the understanding that the mechanical center of the
BPM is approved to be determined only via the metrology department. The mechanical center estimation on the
test bench holds enough possibilities to not be as accurate as desired. One solution of being sure of the mechanical
center position was by observing the measurements of the entire test bench on a CMM. A small bed CMM, for
example, a 200cm × 200cm bed was quoted by the metrology team to be starting at a value of 20.000 C. A market
investigation showed us the utility of these machines for our application would be very appropriate but expensive.
Another investigation conducted was on linear stages, each stage starts from a base price of 5.000 C. Under the
evaluation done for the test bench, it was identified that the NEWPORT series linear stages stacked one over the

17
other was as effective as most motors available in the market. Different sensors and tools surveyed were used in
proposing solutions described later. For this project, two papers were primarily used which are cited [2][8][4][5].

6 PHASE 3: Conceptual Design

Scope: The conceptual design period is a trial and error period where new solutions are proposed to gauge the
solution closest to the user requirements. A solution analysis of the proposed solution makes the findings quantifi-
able.
Investigation Questions: What type of solutions can be proposed? How can the 50µm accuracy be achieved?
How can a selection procedure be conducted?
Phase Closure: The submission of a Solution Analysis Report and a Solution Selection Document. The Solu-
tion Analysis Report enlists the different proposals considered after market research while the Solution Selection
Document clearly states the solution selection procedure and final choice made by the users.

Figure 18: Proposed Solutions

6.1 Proposed Solutions

Four solutions were proposed to the users from the study conducted on the test bench as shown in Figure 18.
The optical alignment method uses camera systems to snap the circular BPM flange using the image processing
techniques of edge detection via Hough Transforms. A high field of view camera with a MATLAB code to identify
the position of the BPM circular flange, with reference to a mark set on the bench is needed to implement this
system. The ultrasonic sensor alignment relies on obstacle detection techniques where the obstacle in sight[11]
is fixed on the bench while the laser tool, on the circular flange of the BPM. Industrial solutions of laser and
spindle alignment were considered by GenSwiss[12] which offer their Perfect Zero Alignment Techniques for
the alignment of circular flanges. The final technique is a mechanical tool attached to the BPM that uses a BPM
reference to align the center of the capacitive tool, that further relates the capacitive tool center to the BPM
reference surface, initializing the wire center to the BPM body.

6.2 Solution Selection

Having listed different proposals that can be implemented in the conception of the test bench, a selection criteria
will be designed to shortlist the most favourable solution. The selection criteria shall not only be a tabulated
overview of the most suitable option but it will also be a weighted function of the most important parameters in
the selection process. The selection criteria defined must relate with the objectives in Figure 16. On the basis of
the development of our study so far, we create a set of criteria to narrow down to the best solution. These are
shown in Table 3 as a Multi-Criteria Selection Matrix. The final solution is selected after the verification of the

18
 Table 3: Multi-Criteria Selection Matrix

Table 4: Solution Proposal Analysis

matrix with a simple Advantage-Disadvantage list as shown in Table 4 made by the users and designers together.
The verification of a numeric technique by the use of human evaluation creates a stronger case in the selection of

19
a feasible solution. As can be seen, the mechanical alignment tool was found to be the best solution by the users.

7 PHASE 4: Detailed Design

Scope: The detailed design phase lists the design description and the engineering analysis of the choices made.
Investigation Questions: How can the selected proposal be detailed? How can an engineering analysis strategy
be designed for the chosen solution?
Phase Closure: The submission of an Engineering Analysis Document which encompasses all the important
verification techniques employed by the designers ends this phase.

Figure 19: Specifications for Mechanical Tool Design

7.1 Design Development

After selecting the option of the mechanical attachment tool, we summarize the specifications for the main design
as in Figure 19. All designs are made in CATIA V5. For all illustrations, the HL-LHC BPM of type Q1 (Stripline)
shall be used, since the three HL-LHC BPMs are of the same series, having similar reference surfaces. The new

Figure 20: Capacitive Tool

test bench shall reuse the most expensive component which are the linear stages, to comply with the cost constraint
of the project. The wire mechanism, cage and optical bench shall be used in the new test bench while providing
the possibility to use the old platform. To get to a suitable design option for measuring the wire on the top and
the bottom, six points were discussed in detail. The first on the - method of supporting the BPM (suspended or
resting on a bench), secondly on the - shape and dimensions of the capacitive tool detail, thirdly on the - tool
for the top and the bottom (same or different), fourthly on whether - the tool must be 1 piece or 2 or 3, fifthly
on whether the - Network Analyzer for tool on the top and the bottom will be attached (at the same time or
once at a time) and lastly on the use of the metrological reference surfaces on the BPM.

BPM Support Structure, Capacitive Tool Dimensions

20
 Figure 21: Support Structure for BPMs

Points 1 and 2 are on the BPM support and capacitive tool details respectively. To calibrate the wire on the
top and bottom of the BPM, we shall need enough space around the BPM. The BPM could be rested on the
existing H-platform, then the capacitive tool design cannot be an excess component attached on the top and the
bottom of the BPM given the clearance on the faces. Different capacitive tool designs were explored as shown in
Figure 20. Although easier to integrate, the tool design resting on the face of the BPM, denoted by 1, interferes
with the edges to be kept pristine for the vacuum seals on the BPM ends. The Butterfly electrodes in image 2 do
not ensure material symmetry around the capacitive pattern. The pattern currently being used in the capacitive
tool for the LEIR BPMs is well measured, for which reason, the same pattern will be adapted on the tool. It is
necessary to keep the capacitive tool reference the same as the BPM reference surfaces, as this would then make
the universal metrological surface of reference the same across all users of the BPMs. In this way, we can ensure

Figure 22: Part of Capacitive Tool always attached to the BPM-Part A

the uniformity in the dimensional measurements taken on the BPM calibration test bench to the measurements
received from metrology. The design of the support structure can be seen in Figure 21 where different concepts
were considered. It was identified that even though design 3 provided more guides for measurement, the increased
number of components would add to the tolerances of the system, making the achieved accuracy poor. Option 4
and the use of a Bosch Profile to provide structural integrity to the BPM was considered at a cost effective price.
Through these variations, the holistic idea was set that the capacitive tool must be attached to the reference surface
and the diametrically opposite reference surface be used for the vertical support structure, thereby also discussing
point 6. For precision, these surfaces have to be marked and cannot be swapped. The capacitive tool design and
dimensions will be taken to be the same as that on the LEIR capacitive tool and adapted on the basis of the BPM
being used. and that the BPM will be suspended in air with the help of a Bosch Profile as the vertical member.

Capacitive Tool Details

21
 Figure 23: Other Design Variations Proposed

The capacitive tool works as the baseline for BPM alignment, the determination of the center through this tool
gives us, the center for initializing the wire alignment and hence the reference for the electrical center. The
capacitive tool also connects the BPM reference surface to the center of the tool. In this case, points 3 and 4 can
be addressed here. The repeatability error of the tool will be much higher each time it is removed from the BPM
reference surface. The removal will also cause disturbances to the wire calibration and damage the important BPM
reference surface. To deal with this issue, a part of the tool will always be attached to the BPM until its installation
in the accelerator as can be seen in Figure 22. For the wire calibration, capacitive centers can be installed prior to

Figure 24: Electrically Isolated design variants

beginning the alignment and be removed once it is complete. This ensures that no mechanical components disturb
the EM shielding for the travelling pulse on the stretched wire. For ease in our discussions, the capacitive center
tools will be referred to as Part B. Once identified that the tool will be at least two parts, we shall see if the same
tool is used on the top and the bottom or, two symmetric tools are used on the top and bottom or, two asymmetric
tools are used on the top and bottom. The BPM reference surfaces are not placed at the geometric center of the
BPM body. Using the same tool for wire calibration will disturb the setup when it is being moved from the top to
the bottom. Hence, separate capacitive center attachments will be made for the top and bottom calibrations. The
contact between Part A and Part B must reduce sagging effects of the capacitive tool at the wire center. To make
access to the BPM cables easy, it was decided to make the two Part B pieces for the top and bottom different. This
would mean that the capacitive tool will be an assembly of three parts, all different. These will be referred to as
Part A (attached to the BPM), Part B-top (Capacitive center tool at the top) and Part B-bottom (Capacitive center
tool at the bottom). Other design variants considered for the tool design are as shown in Figure 23. It is important
to understand how the user would like to use the capacitive tool. One way to do the wire alignment would be by
mounting all pieces of the capacitive tool on the BPM and connecting the Network Analyzer for the alignment, at

22
 Figure 25: Part A Design Variants

the same time. This works if the top and bottom pieces are electrically isolated. For this ceramic patch proposals
were suggested as in Figure 24. In image 12, the tool is fabricated in two pieces, Part A1 and Part A2, separated
by a slab a ceramic between them. The other design as seen in 13 and 14 is an assembly of a ceramic washer and
metal pieces to make the tool electrically isolated. A simpler way of making the tool would require for the top and
bottom tool to be used for the alignment process, one at a time, saving cost and time, hence addressing point 5.
The final design variants for Part A suggested are as shown in Figure 25 that ensure enough clearance for attaching
cables to the feedthroughs. As indicated in the images 15 and 16, the E shaped design of Part A is a more suitable
option, owing to the free access to the feedthroughs and the lower mass of the assembly. The final tool with the
capacitive centers is as shown in Figure 26.

Figure 26: Final Design Variant for the Capacitive Tool

7.2 Engineering Analysis

This section deals with the dimensional constraining of the tool, the tolerance stack and finally, the static struc-
tural analysis of the vertical member and cross section of the interface. The design finalization and verification
techniques are also discussed here.

Dimensional Analysis

Having decided what the tool looks like, it is important to take into account any dimensional constraints necessary.
The tool as shown in Figure 26 is constrained on the basis of the center of the BPM, the requirement of the users

23
 Figure 27: Illustrations for dimensional considerations in Tool Design

on the Z-height at which the BPM must be placed. The BPM, Q1 stripline used for our measurements poses the
dimensional constraints on the design of the capacitive tool. The material already identified for the capacitive tool
is stainless steel. The dimensions of the capacitive tool center are the same as the capacitive tool designed for the
LEIR BPM. The length constraints of the tool overhang and clearance from the BPM are as seen in Figure 27. The
placement of the BPM along the Z height from the Optical Bench was decided by taking into consideration the
use of the extensions used to extend the vacuum chamber of the BPM during calibration, for smooth pulse travel
along the wire. As shown in Figure 28, vacuum extensions are used to provide EM shielding to the travelling
pulse on the stretched wire during the calibration procedure. These will be installed after centering the wire to
the capacitive tool measurements, after removing Parts B. The ideal length of these extensions is supposed to be
equal to the length of the BPM, however, in practice, for longer BPMs this would not be very effective, thus they
are made half the length of the BPM. In order to design a very symmetric BPM test bench, if the BPMs are kept
equidistant from the wire frames, this would lead in more controlled measurements as the pulse would have equal
distances to travel near the entry and exit of the BPM.

Figure 28: BPM Vacuum Chamber Extension

Tolerance Stack Analysis

Although the final design to be implemented has been discussed in detail, it will only come to fruition when we
know that it can help us achieve a 50µm error between the wire and the BPM axis. Tolerance Stack Analysis
is one such technique which helps us derive the quality and quantity of mechanical performance. In an ideal
world, there would be no tolerances in mechanical components but in a "frictional" society, manufacturing errors
create measurement inaccuracies. Chamfering and filleting practices have resulted in improving the longevity of

24
 Figure 29: Tolerance Measurement

our mechanical components, and surface roughness makes these parts utilise the best of their material properties,
thereby increasing the efficiency of mechanical components. Playing with shaft-hole tolerances give us an option
of deciding what kind of fit we are looking for between our components in an assembly. These inherent tolerances
in shafts and holes can be as depicted in Figure 29. Loose fittings between the holes and pins creates a rotational
movement about the axis of the assembled pieces. Figure 29 explains a sample calculation of how tolerances are
stacked from the main body, the BPM reference surface to the center of the tool. BPMs in the LHC, are fabricated
considering very tight tolerances. The manufacturing techniques employed in their conception must maintain the
consistency in measurements owing to their reference surfaces. The tolerance stack analysis helps us find the
resulting effect of the tolerances all the way from the BPMs to the center of the capacitive tool as illustrated in
Figure 30. If this resulting value is less than 50µm, the tool shall prove to be the best accommodation for the users.

Figure 30: Steps in the Tolerance Stack Analysis

25
There are two primary methods to stack up tolerances, these are the Linear Sum Technique (worst case scenario)
that is the linear addition of the values, and the Root Sum Squared Technique. It has been found that a more exact
estimation of the tolerance stack is the Root Sum Squared Technique[13] that is a 1-σ normal distribution is as
described in Equation 7. q
T RSS = T1 2 + T2 2 + T3 2 + ... + Tn 2 (7)
The tolerance Stack helps us identify the maximum pin hole distance on the capacitive tool parts A and B needed
to achieve the accuracy levels demanded by the users as shown in Figure 29. Table 5 lists the total tolerances of

Table 5: Tolerance Stack for the BPM only

the BPM metrological reference surface. The tolerances of the pin holes on the reference surface that are used in
attaching the tool to them are the positional and hole-shaft tolerances. The pins used here are observed to have a
sliding fit (6H7) and hence the ISO standard of H7g6 are considered in the tolerance stack for these holes. The
6H7 holes stand for a nominal φ of 6mm for a hole basis system.[14]. These tolerances are transmitted to the
designed tool as explained in Steps 2 and 3 in Figure 30 and calculated in Table 7. The total stack as shown in
Table 6 is when the total summed square of the BPM reference surface are added to the total summed square of
the total tool tolerances. The Value of Accuracy achieved by the tool is 0.103mm for the Top Tool and 0.108mm
for the Bottom Tool. This implies that the mechanical attachment tool cannot measure within 50µ of the BPM
center implying that to identify the center of the BPM-Tool system, metrological measurements will have to be
conducted. The tolerance stack analysis clearly identifies the need of reducing the tolerance-inducing features

Table 6: Combined Total Tolerance Stack for BPM and Top and Bottom Tools

instead of reducing the number of components. In our case it was seen that the features on the three part assembly
could only be reduced by lowering the number of interfaces between two components. For this reason, minimising
the number of parts in the assembly would prove to be a better solution than the current 3 part assembly. This
would only be possible by changing the concept of the capacitive tool pattern for the alignment measurements.
Structural Analysis
The static structural analysis of the Bosch Profile supporting the BPM and Tool assembly must be conducted to
identify the cross section of the vertical column to be used. The vertical column must not bend because this would

26
 Table 7: Tolerance Stack for the Top Tool only

hinder with the center alignment of the capacitive tool. It is necessary to select a cross section of the pipe that
can sustain the weight of the BPM. The methods of attaching the BPM to the support structure on the basis of the
spatial constraints were studied and two possibilities were narrowed down to. Numerical techniques and ANSYS
were used to verify the results. The Boundary Conditions and simplification of the problem for numerical analysis
can be seen in Figure 31.

27
 Figure 31: Boundary Conditions for Numerical Analysis and ANSYS

As described in Figure 31, the maximum deflection in the cross-section of the cantilever can be found by using
the parameters of force, F, length of beam, L, Modulus of Elasticity, E and Moment of Inertia, I. From mechanics,
the maximum deflection[15], δmax can be given by Equation 8.
F L3 bh(b2 + h2 )
δmax = , I= (8)
3EI 12
The moment of inertia, I for a rectangular cross section is as shown above where b is the width of the rectangular
cross-section and h is the height. Assuming Aluminium as the material of the support structure, the E of Al6061-
T6 is 70.4 GPa. The cross-section of the cantilever that we initialize the design with is as shown in the dummy
geometry in Figure 32. The b of the cross-section is 50.8mm while the h is 20mm. The Moment of Inertia

Figure 32: Support Structure FEA on ANSYS

calculated is 2.524 × 10− 7 m4 . The calculated deflection for a cantilever length of 40mm and a force of 300N is
0.00096mm. The deflection found in ANSYS was 0.002mm. The values are different owing to the difference in
the calculation procedure. In any case the bending in the vertical member is low. The selected support structure is
a Bosch STRUT PROFILE 60X60L, Material number: 3842992443. The cross-section of this pipe is higher than
the baseline value and it is reinforced with a peculiar detailed section having a much higher moment of inertia.
Due to this the deflections in the vertical member would be reduced. The length of the cantilever was kept at
40mm but a higher cross-section was designed (from 50.8 × 20 to 60 × 35). The base of the Bosch Profile was

28
reinforced by attaching two additional profiles of the same dimensions as the vertical member. The final proposed
assembly can be seen in Figure 33.

Figure 33: Final Test Bench Design

8 Conclusion and Future Scope

This report deals with incorporating project management techniques in the conception of the test bench which
was done using the Concurrent Engineering Approach. The techniques here helped us identify the principles and
phases involved in the CE process that were used in designing the template of the project development of the test
bench. The study of BPMs, calibration techniques and the current test bench helped us see the need of the new
test bench better. This also streamlined the design approach by collecting additional requirements from the user
and extracting the major technical constraints needed in fulfilling their demand. The objectives of cost, scope and
time compliance constructed the walls within which the project was built. New solutions for the test bench were
discussed and a criteria to evaluate their merit was suggested. Of them all, the mechanical tool for the measurement
of the electrical parameters of the BPMs was found to be the most suitable option. The strongest observation in
the unfolding of the design of the BPM calibration test stand was that the calibration techniques at CERN have
been ubiquitously done with respect to the metrological reference surfaces of the BPM. This led to possibilities
of whether different methods could be considered in the future, to automatize the calibration technique, make it
more universal in terms of the BPMs tested on the bench and increase measurement accuracy. A detailed design
process was conducted with several variants being considered to discuss the options providing improved structural
strength, electrical isolation and maximized EM shielding. The engineering analysis of the proposed design was
conducted where the chosen design, the mechanical tool was verified in dimension, accuracy and strength. Using
FEA, a support structure cross-section of 60mm × 60mm from Bosch was selected. Both the tool and the support
member are connected to identified reference surfaces which are diametrically opposite to each other. The wire
frame is perpendicular to the axis joining the diametric edge of the tool and the support. The verification techniques
used by the designers ensured, that the users received all the deliverables promised to them in the project mandate
and that the scope of the project was fulfilled so far. The capacitive tool was inspired from the capacitive tool of
the LEIR BPM. It was identified that this tool could not achieve an accuracy of around 50µm through the tolerance
stack analysis and that the metrology team must measure the BPM center with respect to the BPM tool, prior to

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BPM calibrations to achieve the accuracy. The validation process where the engineering analysis was reviewed
by the users team suggested that the pattern of the capacitive tool could be made such that the tool becomes more
simplified and preferably from 3 pieces to 1 to reduce the effect of several parts in the Tolerance Stack. This was
identified as an important step as this would reduced the total tolerance stack error and increase the performance of
the capacitive tool. The project is ongoing and shall keep developing with the strategy employed in its unfolding
thus far.
The BPM Calibration Test Stand design entails several possibilities to work on int the future. The continuation
of the design and manufacture of the new variant of the tool based on the same concept as the final tool proposed
here could be conducted. The capacitive tool designed in this project can proceed to verification with the building
of a prototype. This prototype can be mounted on the BPM and measured on a CMM to see the repeatability error
in finding the center for initializing the wire alignment. This would help us improve the accuracy of the tolerance
stack analysis conducted for the tool. In the RSS technique for the tolerance stack, higher order distributions could
be implemented to snap results as close to the real values measured by metrology. The center found with the tool
can be compared with the measurements of the mechanical center measured by metrology and the value of the
error can be found. This will give us a repeatability error of the tool which can be used in improving the overall
efficiency of the test bench. Upgrades to the tool while keeping an account of this error, such that it is minimised
can be an interesting project to do. Techniques to make the test bench more versatile can be considered such that
the calibration technique used can be applied to any BPM. Changes to the wire mechanism can be made such that
the space around the BPM is more free for handling and BPM adjustments and studies on wire mechanics can
be simulated to understand EM disturbances better and to simulate the conditions for a 400MHz pulse. Thermal
imaging systems can be used to try to evaluate the changes in the wire during the calibration procedure.

References
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luminosity-lhc.
[2] H. Schmickler. “Beam Position Measurement System Design”. In: Proceedings of IBIC2015, Melbourne,
Australia (2015).
[3] European Space Agency. What is concurrent engineering? URL: http://www.esa.int/Enabling_
Support/Space_Engineering_Technology/CDF/What_is_concurrent_engineering.
[4] M. Wendt. “Overview of recent trends and developments for BPM systems”. In: ResearchGate (2013).
[5] M. Wendt. BPM Systems: A brief Introduction to Beam Position Monitoring. URL: Proceedings %
20of%20the%202018%20CERN%E2%80%93Accelerator%E2%80%93School%20course%
20onBeam%20Instrumentation,%20Tuusula,%20(Finland).
[6] F. Caspers T. Kroyer A.L. Scholtz. “Application of Waveguide Mode Diagnostics for Remote Sensing in
Accelerator Beam Pipes”. In: ResearchGate (2005).
[7] G.R. Lambertson. “Calibration of Position Electrodes using external measurements”. In: LSAP Note-5, LBL
(1987).
[8] H. Koziol. “Beam Diagnostics for Accelerators”. In: CAS- CERN Accelerator School (2005).
[9] Rende Steerenberg. “Introduction to Colliders”. In: CERN Indico (2018).
[10] Distrelec Germany. Transmissive Photomicrosensor. URL: http://www.distrelec.de.
[11] microsonic GmbH. MICROSONIC Online Catalogue. Dortmund, Germany: ., 2020.
[12] GenSwiss. GenSwiss, Online Tool Catalogue. Massachussets, USA: ., 2019.
[13] Fritz Scholz. “Tolerance Stack Analysis Methods”. In: Boeing Information & Support Services (1995).
[14] ISO Standards Handbook. Limits, fits and surface properties. URL: https://kiralytool.com/wp-
content/uploads/2017/05/hole-shaft-tolerance-chart.pdf.
[15] Warren C. Young. Roark’s Formulas for Stress and Strain. New York, USA: McGraw Hill, 1975.

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