Experimental study of CMS conductor stability

Several computations have been carried out in last years to evaluate stability against disturbances of the CMS coil. The results coming from finite element analysis have shown that the Minimum Quench Energy is between 0.43 and 0.855 depending on the model describing the transition from superconducting to normal state. The corresponding Minimum Propagating Zone is quite short, ranging between 10 and 20 cm. This very short MPZ allows to perform experimental measurements on short samples. This has been done using circular samples (400 mm in diameter) energized to 20 kA by the transformer method. The applied field ranging between 3.5 and 6 T, is provided by the Ma.Ri.S.A. Facility at INFN Geneva. A comparison between computations and experimental results is presented.