The CLIQ Quench Protection System Applied to the 16 T FCC-hh Dipole Magnets

Abstract

Part of the Future Circular Collider (FCC-hh) study is dedicated to the development of the 16 Tesla Nb3Sn superconducting dipole magnets. The design of the magnets was enabled by a cooperative effort of national research institutes, universities, and CERN. These actors tackled the problem from different sides, namely, the electromagnetic design, the mechanical design, the design of the quench protection systems, and the circuit design. The article deals with the design of the quench protection systems and provides solid motivations for the selection of the coupling-loss-induced quench (CLIQ) device as the baseline protection system for the FCC-hh main dipole magnets. The article shows that the design domains mentioned above are tightly interconnected and, therefore, the simulation of a quench event involves a complex multiphysics problem. The STEAM cosimulation framework, recently developed at CERN, is applied to address the complexity. The STEAM-SIGMA models are employed to simulate the CLIQ quench protection system applied to the FCC-hh dipole magnets. Dedicated CLIQ configurations are identified to protect the magnets in case of a quench. In addition, the possible implications of the CLIQ protection system on the mechanical design of the magnets are discussed. To this end, the article employs the co-simulation of different software platforms to calculate the mechanical stress during a quench. The results show that CLIQ does not produce additional stress.