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MARTA - Integrated 2-Phase Accumulator Controlled Loop (l-2PACL)

MARTA (Monoblock Approach for a Refrigeration Technical Application) is a transportable laboratory chiller based on evaporation of liquid CO₂. Its technology uses as a basis the TRACI (Transportable Refrigeration Apparatus for CO₂ Investigation) – originally developed at CERN.

The Integrated 2-Phase Accumulator Controlled Loop (I-2PACL) is a modification of the existing 2PACL system developed at CERN for the AMS-Tracker and LHCb-VELO CO₂ cooling systems. The integrated 2PACL method is a differentway of operating and control the original 2PACL concept. The modification makes the system simpler, more reliable, better to control and cheaper. MARTA has been designed by joint effort of the Cracow University of Technology, PONAR Wadowice and CEBEA Bochnia, all strongly supported by the CERN EP-DT group.

Cracow University of Technology (CUT) is a multi-profile school of higher education and research ... in the fields of basic sciences, engineering technologies, and architecture, has expertise in the domains of Technical Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science and Information Technology, Materials Science and Mechanical Engineering, as well as Chemical, Civil, Electrical, and Environmental Engineering technologies. The Cracow University of Technology is an Associate Member of the ATLAS collaboration.
CEBEA Bochnia is a manufacturing company specialized in cooling technology for food industry, particularly in production of refrigerating equipment used for storage and direct selling of food;
PONAR Wadowice is the largest Polish producer of oil hydraulics elements and systems, offering a full range of services from design, production, maintenance and repairs – up to complete, final products. Many applications of hydraulic systems contain an advanced cooling systems and a complex high pressure liquid distribution systems.
CUT, CEBEA and PONAR have created a consortium called Konsorcjum PCP in order to facilitate their relationship with CERN, in particular for realization of the MARTA project.
The objective of the MARTA project was to redesign the TRACI system in order to reduce the production costs and offer this technology for a broader field of use.
MARTA is an evaporative CO₂ cooling system for scientific and industrial R&D equipment based on I-2PACL technology. The I-2PACL is a method that can instantly control the evaporative conditions in an experimental set-up vary from room temperature down to -40 °C. This technology is therefore an ideal way of controlling set-ups with a high demand on thermal stability and flexibility with a minimum of added hardware. It is considered as an outstanding technology compared to the traditional methods used in commercial refrigeration systems.
The goal of the next stage of the project is to develop a new version of MARTA entirely based on CO₂. The CO₂ laboratory coolers will be more efficient and environmentally friendly in use than the traditional systems. Read more