Thermo-magnetic instabilities in Nb3Sn Superconducting Accelerator Magnets

The advance of High Energy Physics research using circulating accelerators strongly depends on increasing the magnetic bending field which accelerator magnets provide. To achieve high fields, the most powerful present-day accelerator magnets employ NbTi superconducting technology; however, with the start up of Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in 2007, NbTi magnets will have reached the maximum field allowed by the intrinsic properties of this superconductor. A further increase of the field strength necessarily requires a change in superconductor material; the best candidate is Nb3Sn. Several laboratories in the US and Europe are currently working on developing Nb3Sn accelerator magnets, and although these magnets have great potential, it is suspected that their performance may be fundamentally limited by conductor thermo-magnetic instabilities: an idea first proposed by the Fermilab High Field Magnet group early in 2003. This thesis presents a study of thermo-magnetic instability in high field Nb3Sn accelerator magnets. In this chapter the following topics are described: the role of superconducting magnets in High Energy Physics; the main characteristics of superconductors for accelerator magnets; typical measurements of current capability in superconducting strands; the properties of Nb3Sn; a description of the manufacturing process of Nb3Sn strands; superconducting cables; a typical layout of superconducting accelerator magnets; the current state of the art of Nb3Sn accelerator magnets; the High Field Magnet program at Fermilab; and the scope of the thesis