B513 Planning Meeting, 6th May 2003

Present:           Tony Cass, Fabio Corsanego, Anne Funken, Jukka Lindroos, Jose Miranda-Vizuete, Tim Whibley

1.             Previous Minutes

  1. Approved with minor corrections.

2.             Substation Planning

  1. Fabio Corsanego reviewed various safety related aspects of the new substation.
    1. There is no particular risk for most of the equipment to be installed in the substation. The exception is the batteries for the UPS systems and the possible risk of hydrogen emissions. Howerver, the batteries to be used will be sealed units of the type widely used elsewhere at CERN.
    2. The placement of the dry transformers is acceptable in terms of the level of risk to the building. Fabio reconfirmed, though, that the barn area by the transformers should not be used for offices.
    3. Although the transformers are placed near to hvac inlets this is acceptable since no smoke from incidents in the substation will be taken up and circulated into the rest of the building. The biggest risk is for the existing UPS room; the air filters for the relevant air inlets (above the LV room) must be fire resistant.
    4. The transformers are equipped with a thermal cut-out. This is transmitted to the TCR as a level 2 alarm.
    5. The smoke extraction provisions (1m3/s per 100m2) were considered adequate.
    6. Fabio insisted that the  substation rooms be well separated from the rest of the building to prevent smoke propagation. In particular, all doors must be smoke resistant for at least 30 minutes. He considered that this requirement excluded the use of metal doors.
    7. There was a suggestion to extend the steam exit pipe upwards by about 3m to ensure that the exit is well away from any transformers, but this steam exit was not considered as a risk for the substation.
  2. Overall, Fabio considered the substation design to be acceptable, but emphasised the need for smoke detection and for the fire brigade to be able to shutdown the substation.
  3. The specification meeting was confirmed for 9:30am on May 9th..
  4. Anne will be able to attend the Site Committee and will prepare a presentation, possibly including Nigel’s “photographs”. The greatest impact will be the reduction of parking space during construction. Although temporary spaces could be created along route Gregory, there are usually some spare places in the car park on the Salève side of B513 so this may not be necessary.

3.             Machine Room Upgrade

  1. Given recent events, there had been little time to study the machine room upgrade in detail. Three points were discussed, however.
    1. We need to be sure that the machine room is properly isolated from the rest of the building. Jose will investigate the current situation before the next meeting. The biggest impact is likely to be on the cable connections between the machine room and the modem/fibre room— the future hvac arrangements for which we must also be uinvestigated.
    2. Anne has had some initial discussions with Nigel concerning equipment and normabarre layout. Tony should contact Nigel to follow this up during Anne’s absence.
    3. Anne will prepare, probably via Marcel Lasne, a list of the existing equipment that can be used. This will mostly consist of normabarres and some circuit breakers although there is some chance that parts of the existing PDU cabinets could be reused.

4.             Lessons from incident on 22nd April

  1. It is clear now that we should not use differential protection on the barrettes. Unfortunately, further study is needed before we can agree the best replacement solution.
  2. A failure/maintenance mode analysis is needed for the hvac systems (and their associated electrical supply) as well as for the electrical supply for computing equipment. The analysis should present the costs associated with any additional installations (hvac units or redundant electrical supply) required to reduce vulnerability. The sooner such a study is available, the easier it will be to integrate any agreed changes into the overall planning—both in terms of work to be done and the financial planning.
  3. Anne would also like to understand if any special arrangements need to be made during the installation of equipment in the current UPS room. In particular, should the cables be routed to the UPS units from above to allow optimum air supply under the false floor? Jukka did not consider this to be necessary, but agreed that the placement of the UPS units in the room should be studied carefully as should the hvac arrangements for the remodelled transformer area.
  4. It was agreed that temperature sensors should be installed in the technical area. These should probably be connected to the plc that sends information from the vault PDUs to the operators.
  5. All future ST works in B513 will be reviewed by the ST Operations Committee to ensure that all side effects are considered.

5.             AOB

  1. IT division have identified a supplier for controllable barrettes. A meeting with the supplier will be arranged for the week of May 26th such that Anne can be involved.
  2. Next meeting: 14:00, Wednesday 28th May.