New Types of Organic Resins for Insulation of Warm Magnets

Two types of new organic resins are under development at KEK for the magnet insulation materials. One is Cyanate ester resins which will be used in warm magnet insulation instead of usual epoxy resins. One of its important characteristics is its radiation hardness. We have already developed a new type of the insulation resin based on Bismaleimide-Triazine (BT) resin. Most magnets of J-PARC, Japanese high intensity proton accelerator complex, were assembled with BT resin. However sometimes thermal characteristic of the BT resin was too keen at the curing stage. Therefore somewhat moderate thermal characteristics of Cyanate ester resin may be superior as magnet insulation resin. R&D work of Cyanate ester resin has started at KEK and good results as magnet insulator have already been obtained. Another trial is to utilize resins which can be hardened by Ultra Violet light. Therefore the resin is called as “UV-resin”. Their very important characteristic is its rapidness to be hardened. Some UV-resin will be hardened within several second from smooth liquid by irradiation of UV-LED light. This phenomenon will help us to assemble warm magnet coils with very much complicated shape. However its mechanical strength and radiation hardness etc. must be investigated.