Run 2 collimation overview

The LHC collimation system is designed to provide protection against regular and abnormal losses in order to reduce the risk of quenches of the superconducting magnets as well as the background in the experiments. All Run 2 proton and ion runs were successfully completed with no magnet quenches from slow losses of the circulating beam. The present contribution reviews the performance of the collimation system in the 2018 run and gives an overview of the performance during Run 2. This paper presents the cleaning performance for protons and ions and the collimation system availability. In addition, the improvements and experience gained with the collimator controls and with the new collimation hardware are discussed, together with the performance of the collimation system during the special high-β∗ physics runs. Finally, the new hardware to be installed during LS2 is described and the operational implications discussed.