Operational safety

The size of the LHC constitutes an exceptional engineering challenge with unique operational issues on account of the huge energy stored in the magnets and the beams. While operating, the total energy stored in the magnets is 10 GJ (equivalent to 2.4 tons of TNT) and the total energy carried by the two beams reaches 724 MJ.

Loss of only one ten-millionth part (10−7) of the beam is sufficient to quench a superconducting magnet, while the beam dump must absorb an energy equivalent to that of a typical air-dropped bomb. These immense energies are even more impressive considering how little matter is carrying it: under nominal operating conditions (2,808 bunches per beam, 1.15×10 11 protons per bunch), the beam pipes contain 1.0×10-9 gram of hydrogen, which, in standard conditions for temperature and pressure, would fill the volume of one grain of fine sand.