Twin rotating coils for cold magnetic measurements of 15 m long LHC dipoles

Abstract

We describe here a new harmonic coil system for the field measurement of the superconducting, twin aperture LHC dipoles and the associated corrector magnets. Besides field measurements the system can be used as an antenna to localize the quench origin. The main component is a 16 m long rotating shaft, made up of 13 ceramic segments, each carrying two tangential coils plus a central radial coil, all working in parallel. The segments are connected with flexible Ti-alloy bellows, allowing the piecewise straight shaft to follow the curvature of the dipole while maintaining high torsional rigidity. At each interconnection the structure is supported by rollers and ball bearings, necessary for the axial movement for installation and for the rotation of the coil during measurement. Two such shafts are simultaneously driven by a twin-rotating unit, thus measuring both apertures of a dipole at the same time. This arrangement allows very short measurement times (typically 10 s) and is essential to perform cold magnetic measurements of all dipoles. The coil surface and direction are calibrated using a reference dipole. In this paper we describe the twin rotating coil system and its calibration facility, and we give the typical resolution and accuracy achieved with the first commissioned unit.