Measurements of the Field Quality in Superconducting Dipoles at High Ramp Rates

Several recent applications of superconducting magnets require the magnets to be operated at high ramp rates and at frequencies of several Hertz. Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) has recently designed and built prototypes of superconducting dipole magnets that can be ramped at a fairly high rate (1 T/s or more). For accelerator applications, it is also crucial that the magnets maintain good field quality even at high ramp rates. In order to characterize the field quality of magnets at high ramp rates, a measurement system consisting of 16 printed circuit tangential coils has been developed. The coil system is held stationary while the magnet is ramped. This paper describes the techniques used for the measurements and data analysis, and presents the results of measurements at ramp rates of up to 4 T/s in a prototype dipole built at BNL for GSI.