Mechanical commissioning of the ATLAS Barrel Toroid Magnet

ATLAS is a general-purpose detector designed to run at the highest luminosity at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Its features include the 4 T Barrel Toroid magnet, the largest superconducting magnet (25 m long, 20 m diameter) that provides the magnetic field for the ATLAS muon spectrometer. The coils integrated at CERN, were tested individually at maximum current of 22 kA in 2005. Following the mechanical assembly of the Barrel Toroid in the ATLAS underground cavern, the test of the full Barrel Toroid was performed in October 2006. Further tests are foreseen at the end 2007 when the system will include the two End Cap Toroids (ECT). The paper gives an overview of the good mechanical test results achieved in comparison with model predictions and the experience gained in the mechanical behavior of the ATLAS Toroidal coils is discussed.