Experimental results and analysis from the 11 T Nb3Sn DS dipole

FNAL and CERN are developing a 5.5-m-long twin-aperture Nb3Sn dipole suitable for installation in the LHC. A 2-m-long single-aperture demonstrator dipole with 60 mm bore, a nominal field of 11 T at the LHC nominal current of 11.85 kA and 20% margin has been developed and tested. This paper presents the results of quench protection analysis and protection heater study for the Nb3Sn demonstrator dipole. Extrapolations of the results for long magnet and operation in LHC are also presented.Comment: 10 pages, Contribution to WAMSDO 2013: Workshop on Accelerator Magnet, Superconductor, Design and Optimization; 15 - 16 Jan 2013, CERN, Geneva, Switzerlan

Modeling heat transfer from quench protection heaters to superconducting cables in Nb3Sn magnets

We use a recently developed quench protection heater modeling tool for an analysis of heater delays in superconducting high-field Nb3Sn accelerator magnets. The results suggest that the calculated delays are consistent with experimental data, and show how the heater delay depends on the main heater design parameters.Comment: 8 pages, Contribution to WAMSDO 2013: Workshop on Accelerator Magnet, Superconductor, Design and Optimization; 15 - 16 Jan 2013, CERN, Geneva, Switzerlan

Magnetic Quench Antenna for MQXF Quadrupoles

High-field MQXF-series quadrupoles are presently under development by LARP and CERN for the upcoming LHC luminosity upgrade. Quench training and protection studies on MQXF prototypes require a capability to accurately localize quenches and measure their propagation velocity in the magnet coils. The voltage tap technique commonly used for such purposes is not a convenient option for the 4.2-m-long MQXF-A prototype, nor can it be implemented in the production model. We have developed and tested a modular inductive magnetic antenna for quench localization. The base element of our quench antenna is a round-shaped printed circuit board containing two orthogonal pairs of flat coils integrated with low-noise preamplifiers. The elements are aligned axially and spaced equidistantly in 8-element sections using a supporting rod structure. The sections are installed in the warm bore of the magnet, and can be stacked together to adapt for the magnet length. We discuss the design, operational characteristics and preliminary qualification of the antenna. Axial quench localization capability with an accuracy of better than 2 cm has been validated during training test campaign of the MQXF-S1 quadrupole

A New Scintillator Tile/Fiber Preshower Detector for the CDF Central Calorimeter

A detector designed to measure early particle showers has been installed in front of the central CDF calorimeter at the Tevatron. This new preshower detector is based on scintillator tiles coupled to wavelength-shifting fibers read out by multi-anode photomultipliers and has a total of 3,072 readout channels. The replacement of the old gas detector was required due to an expected increase in instantaneous luminosity of the Tevatron collider in the next few years. Calorimeter coverage, jet energy resolution, and electron and photon identification are among the expected improvements. The final detector design, together with the R&D studies that led to the choice of scintillator and fiber, mechanical assembly, and quality control are presented. The detector was installed in the fall 2004 Tevatron shutdown and started collecting colliding beam data by the end of the same year. First measurements indicate a light yield of 12 photoelectrons/MIP, a more than two-fold increase over the design goals.Comment: 5 pages, 10 figures (changes are minor; this is the final version published in IEEE-Trans.Nucl.Sci.

Designing a Magnetic Measurement Data Acquisition and Control System with Reuse in Mind: A Rotating Coil System Example

Accelerator magnet test facilities frequently need to measure different magnets on differently equipped test stands and with different instrumentation. Designing a modular and highly reusable system that combines flexibility built-in at the architectural level as well as on the component level addresses this need. Specification of the backbone of the system, with the interfaces and dataflow for software components and core hardware modules, serves as a basis for building such a system. The design process and implementation of an extensible magnetic measurement data acquisition and control system are described, including techniques for maximizing the reuse of software. The discussion is supported by showing the application of this methodology to constructing two dissimilar systems for rotating coil measurements, both based on the same architecture and sharing core hardware modules and many software components. The first system is for production testing 10 m long cryo-assemblies containing two MQXFA quadrupole magnets for the high-luminosity upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider and the second for testing IQC conventional quadrupole magnets in support of the accelerator system at Fermilab

Overview of the Quench Heater Performance for MQXF, the Nb3Sn Low-β Quadrupole for the High Luminosity LHC

In the framework of the high-luminosity upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider, the U.S. LARP collaboration and CERN are jointly developing a 150 mm aperture Nb Sn quadrupole for the LHC interaction regions. Due to the large stored energy density and the low copper stabilizer section, the quench protection of these magnets is particularly challenging, relying on a combination of quench heaters attached to the coil surface and coupling loss induced quench (CLIQ) units electrically connected to the coils. This paper summarizes the performance of the quench heater strips in different configurations relevant to machine operation. The analysis is focused on the inner layer quench heaters, where several heater strips failed during powering tests. Failure modes are discussed in order to address the technology issues and provide guidance for future tests.

Analysis of voltage spikes in superconducting Nb3Sn magnets

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory has been developing a new generation of superconducting accelerator magnets based on Niobium Tin (Nb{sub 3}Sn). The performance of these magnets is influenced by thermo-magnetic instabilities, known as flux jumps, which can lead to premature trips of the quench detection system due to large voltage transients or quenches at low current. In an effort to better characterize and understand these instabilities, a system for capturing fast voltage transients was developed and used in recent tests of R&D model magnets. A new automated voltage spike analysis program was developed for the analysis of large amount of voltage-spike data. We report results from the analysis of large statistics data samples for short model magnets that were constructed using MJR and RRP strands having different sub-element size and structure. We then assess the implications for quench protection of Nb{sub 3}Sn magnets