Quench propagation and protection analysis of the ATLAS Toroids

Abstract

The ATLAS superconducting magnet system consists of the Barrel Toroid, two End Cap Toroids and the Central Solenoid. However, the Toroids of eight coils each are magnetically separate systems to the Central Solenoid. The Toroids are electrically connected in series and energized by a single power supply. The quench protection system is based on the use of relatively small external dump resistances in combination with quench-heaters activated after a quench event detection to initiate the internal dump of stored energy in all the coils. A rather strong quench-back effect due to eddy-currents in the coil casings at the transport current decay is beneficial for the quench protection efficiency in the event of heater failures. The quench behaviour of the ATLAS Toroids was computer simulated for normal operation of the quench protection system and its complete non-operation (failure) mode. (3 refs)