Quench antenna and fast-motion investigations during training of a 7 T dipole

Equipment was installed to detect fast conductor motion and quench propagation in a 1 meter long superconducting dipole magnet. (1) The fast-motion antenna, centered within the bore of the magnet, used three long dipole coils, mounted end-to-end to span the magnet length. Coil signals were nulled against a neighbor to produce low-ripple signals that were sensitive to local flux changes. A low microphonic signal was used as an event trigger. (2) Nulling improvements were made for the magnet's coil-imbalance signals for improved cross-correlation information. (3) A quench-propagation antenna was installed to observe current redistribution during quench propagation. It consisted of quadrupole/sextupole coil sets distributed at three axial locations within the bore of the magnet. Signals were interpreted in terms of the radius, angle, orientation, and rate of change of an equivalent dipole. The magnet was cooled to 1.8 K to maximize the number of events. Twenty-four fast-motion events occurred before the first quench. The signals were correlated with the magnet-coil imbalance signals. The quench-propagation antenna was installed for all subsequent quenches. Ramp-rate triggered quenches produced adequate signals for analysis, but pole-turn quenches yielded such small signals that angular localization of a quench was not precise.<
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