Quench protection for a 2-MJ magnet

A superconducting solenoid with conductive bore tube has been used at energies up to 1.9-MJ to test various methods of quench protection. The methods all involve shifting the main coil current to the conductive bore tube and include (1) allowing the quench to evolve naturally, (2) interrupting the primary circuit while providing a varistor used as a shunt across the coil, and (3) turning the entire magnet normal by dumping a short pulse of current from a capacitor bank through the windings.