CALCULATION OF MINIMUM QUENCH ENERGIES IN RUTHERFORD CABLES

The Minimum Quench Energy MQE of a conductor may give some indication about the likelihood of training in magnets. fe have used a numerical solution of the heat flow equation to calculate the MQE of a single su perconducting wire and have found the results to be in good agreement with experiment. This model was then extended to an approximate repres entation of Rutherford cable by including current and heat transfer be tween strands. Reasonable agreement with experiment has been found, al though in some cases it appears that the effective thermal contact bet ween strands is greater than expected from electrical resistance measu rements.