Mechanical Behavior of a 16-T FCC Dipole Magnet During a Quench

Future accelerator magnets are pushed to their limits in terms of magnetic field, mechanical strength and from the quench protection point of view. These forces the magnet designers to rethink the quench modelling. One issue that has not so far been largely explored is the mechanical behavior of the superconducting coils during a quench. This can cause limitations to the design of high-field accelerator magnets. This paper focuses on mechanical behavior in the event of a quench of an Nb₃Sn 16 T dipole magnet currently developed in the framework of the EuroCirCol project in view of the future circular collider conceptual design study. The thermo-mechanical analysis is performed through the finite element modeling. The analysis takes into account the Lorentz force and the thermal stress due to the nonuniform temperature distribution in the winding during a quench. (authors)