STABILITY OF AL-STABILIZED CONDUCTORS FOR LHC DETECTOR MAGNETS

The magnets actually under design for the Large Hadron Collider detect ors at CERN, ATLAS and CMS, are based on Al stabilized conductors. The windings of these magnets are big structures epoxy impregnated and in directly cooled by two-phase LHe. Energy releases due to epoxy crackin g or to friction between cables could quench the whole magnet. In orde r to prevent this occurrence, the stability against thermal disturbanc es must be carefully studied, This paper deals with the development of numerical codes which are able to calculate the recovery-or the propa gation of a 3D normal zone in a non-homogeneous and anisotropic medium , Three different numerical codes are described. The codes were tested through the comparison of their prediction with the measurements of t he minimum energy required to have a quench propagation on the mock-up of the DELPHI magnet at Rutherford Laboratory.