QUENCH PROTECTION TEST-RESULTS AND COMPARATIVE SIMULATIONS ON THE FIRST 10 METER PROTOTYPE DIPOLES FOR THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER

The first 10 metre long dipole prototypes made by European Industry wi thin the framework of the R&D programme for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have been tested at CERN. As a part of the test programme, a ser ies of quench protection tests have been carried out in order to quali fy the basic protection scheme foreseen for the LHC dipoles (quench he aters and cold diodes). Results are presented on the quench heater per formance, and on the maximum temperatures and voltages observed during quenches under the so-called ''machine conditions''. Moreover, an upd ate of the quench simulation package specially developed at CERN (QUAB ER 2) has been recently made, Details on this new version of QUABER ar e given. Simulation runs have been made specifically to validate the m odel with the results from the measurements on quench protection menti oned above.