(Video:CERN)

On 19 September 2008, during powering tests on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a fault occurred in a superconducting interconnection between two magnets – a dipole and a quadrupole – resulting in mechanical damage and release of helium from the magnet cold mass into the tunnel. Proper safety procedures were in force, the safety systems performed as expected, and no-one was put at risk. But the fault did delay work on the LHC by six months.

After the incident, CERN engineers decided that such interconnections should be upgraded to avoid similar electrical faults in future. As a precaution, beams in the LHC were accelerated below the LHC's design limit for the first three years of running. Upgrading the interconnections will be one of the main activities at the LHC during its two-year shutdown, allowing the LHC to run at 7 TeV per beam when it starts up again.

There are 10,000 "splices" – superconducting connections between magnets – on the LHC. Each splice carries 13,000 amps.

In the video above, Jean-Phillipe Tock of the Technology department explains how, over the next 18 months, technicians will add an additional piece – a "shunt" – to each splice. The shunt is a low-resistance connection that forms an alternative path for a portion of the current in the event that the splice loses its superconducting state. A total of 27,000 shunts will be installed in the 27-kilometre accelerator. 

See diagram: "The main 2013-14 LHC consolidations"