Production of Superconductor for the LHC Low-Beta Quadrupole MQXA

In the framework of collaboration between KEK and CERN, KEK undertook to supply half of the high performance superconducting quadrupoles for the inner triplets of the low-beta insertions. Following a design and development stage at KEK, a series of twenty of these magnets, designated type MQXA, has been produced in industry and tested at KEK. FEC (Furukawa) was entrusted with the supply of the 7.4 t of superconducting cable used in this project. The 11 mm wide Rutherford cable was of two types, made from two sizes of wire strand of multifilamentary NbTi in a copper matrix. The specifications of the conductors were established following in-depth discussion between KEK and FEC, and taking into account the requirements of the accelerator magnet and the means available for quality control. In this paper we describe the manufacturing and quality control processes and present the results