A 3 T superconducting magnet for the AMY detector

A 3 T high field superconducting magnet was constructed for the AMY detector at the TRISTAN electron-positron storage ring. Cooldown and excitation tests of the magnet were carried out with the detector in its final configuration. The coil is made with a fully stabilized superconductor wound into an eight layer cylinder with a 2.39 m inner diameter, a 2.58 m outer diameter and 1.54 m in length. An outer jacket of thick stainless steel was shrunk-fit around the coil to provide strength to contain the magnetic forces and to serve as a liquid helium container for the pool boiling cooling system for the coil. A computer controlled refrigeration system with a capacity of 300 W at 4.4. K (100 l/h) was prepared to cool down the 17 t of cold mass of the magnet. It took about five days to cool down from room temperature and achieve a superconducting state, and an additional two days to completely fill the coil with liquid helium and to prepare for the excitation of the magnet. The thermal stresses on the coil support rods were evenly balanced during the cooldown, and the mechanical stresses on the support rods at full excitation (a current of 5000 A) were well below the allowed maximum. In order to verify the safe operation of the magnet system, we carried out fast discharge tests with a time constant of 21 s, which was optimized to protect the magnet from quench. The pressure rise in the helium vessel during the discharge from 5000 A was an easily manageable 1.38x105 Pa. During the fast discharge of the 5000 A excitation, the coil showed no signs of developing any normal regions. At the maximum rated current of 5000 A, the central magnetic field and the inductance were measured to be 3.0367 and 3.2 H, respectively, corresponding to a stored energy of 40 MJ, in good agreement with magnetic field calculations. During these tests and in the succeeding long term operation, the magnet showed excellent stability and reliability. (orig.)