The 5 cm aperture dipole studies

Abstract

The results obtained during the evolution of the design, construction, and testing program of the design B dipole, are presented here. Design B is one of the original three competing designs for the Superconducting Super Collider SSC arc dipoles. The latest design B cross-section The final design parameters were as follows: air cored (less than a few percent of the magnetic field derived from any iron present), aluminum collared, two layered 5.5T maximum operating field, and a 5cm cold aperture. There have been fourteen 64cm long 5cm aperture model dipoles cold tested (at 4.3K and less) in this program so far. There was a half length full size (6m) mechanical analog (M-10) built and tested to check the cryostat's mechanical design under ramping and quench conditions. Several deviations from the 'Tevatron' dipole fabrication technique were incorporated, for example the use of aluminum collars instead of stainless steel. The technique variations explored were dry winding, a technique with the cable covered with Kapton insulation only and wet winding where the Kapton was covered with a light coat of B stage epoxy. Test data include quench currents, field quality (Fourier multipole co-efficients), coil magnetization, conductor current performance, and coil loading. Quench current, loss per cycle, and harmonics were measured as a function of the magnitude and rate of change of the magnetic field, and helium bath temperature.