Thermal, Hydraulic, and Electromagnetic Modeling of Superconducting Magnet Systems

Modeling techniques and tailored computational tools are becoming increasingly relevant to the design and analysis of large-scale superconducting magnet systems. Efficient and reliable tools are useful to provide an optimal forecast of the envelope of operating conditions and margins, which are difficult to test even when a prototype is available. This knowledge can be used to considerably reduce the design margins of the system, and thus the overall cost, or increase reliability during operation. An integrated analysis of a superconducting magnet system is, however, a complex matter, governed by very diverse physics. This paper reviews the wide spectrum of phenomena and provides an estimate of the time scales of thermal, hydraulic, and electromagnetic mechanisms affecting the performance of superconducting magnet systems. The analysis is useful to provide guidelines on how to divide the complex problem into building blocks that can be integrated in a design and analysis framework for a consistent multiphysics simulation.