Development of composite tubes for experimental vacuum chambers of colliders

Interaction region vacuum chambers should be as transparent as possible to minimize the background on the detectors. Beryllium vacuum chambers are, so far, the most transparent, but development work to obtain composite tubes of the same performances is being carried out for LEP. Two new types of tubes have been produced: carbon fiber composite and honeycomb sandwich tubes. The design method together with the fabrication procedures and the test results of these high technology products are presented in this paper