Refinement and Application of a Generic CFD Toolkit Covering the Heat Flows in Combined Solid-Liquid Systems to Investigate Thermal Quench Limits of Superconducting Magnets

The recently developed robust multiregion numerical toolkit for the modeling of heat flows in combined solid-liquid systems is extended to cover larger temperature domains, crossing the superfluid (HeII) to normal helium (HeI) phase transition, and to include NbTi cables that feature open electrical insulation, porous to superfluid helium. The aim is to probe the influence of thermal design details on the temperature margin of superconducting magnets. The model enhancements are discussed and the model is applied to analyze the results of a particle beam loss test in an LHC main dipole. We show and quantify the degree to which the build characteristics of the superconducting magnet, such as electrical insulation and interlayer fishbones, influence the local temperature margin and, hence, the quench level seen by the magnet.