TEMPERATURE-DEPENDENT STABILITY AND PROTECTION PARAMETERS IN AN ADIABATIC SUPERCONDUCTING MAGNET

Experiments were performed to determine the effect of operating temperature on the stability and protection parameters of a small adiabatic Nb - Ti magnet. Quench propagation velocity and minimum quench energy were measured for various combinations of temperature, magnetic field and transport current. The operating temperature ranged from 4.2 to 8 K; the transport current from 25 to 125 A; and the magnetic flux density from 0 to 6 T. An existing computer code was modified to predict the magnet's quench behaviour. The principal research objective was to improve existing analytical models of stability and protection and to use them as analytical tools in designing high T(c) superconducting magnets operating over a wide temperature range, up to almost-equal-to 100 K.