Accelerator Physics - Machine Tolerances

Machine Tolerances

Errors in the alignment of components, field strength, etc., are inevitable in machines of this scale, so it is important to consider the tolerances under which a machine may operate.

Engineers will provide the physicists with expected tolerances for the alignment and manufacture of each component to allow full physics simulations of the expected behaviour of the machine under these conditions. In many cases it will be found that the performance is degraded to an unacceptable level, requiring either re-engineering of the components, or the invention of algorithms that allow the machine performance to be 'tuned' back to the design level.

This may require many simulations of different error conditions in order to determine the relative success of each tuning algorithm, and to allow recommendations for the collection of algorithms to be deployed on the real machine.