IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 22, NO.

3, JUNE 2012 4702204

Protecting the Leads of a Powered Magnet That is
Protected With Diodes and Resistors
M. A. Green, Senior Member, IEEE, H. Pan, S. O. Prestemon, and S. P. Virostek
AbstractMRI magnets and other magnets that have a low cur-
rent and high self-inductance are passively quench-protected with
a system that includes sub-divided coils with resistors and diodes
that are in parallel with sections of the coils. The primary purpose
of coil sub-division is to protect the coil from the high voltages that
can occur during a quench. In the event of a lead failure (conven-
tional or superconducting) between the coil and its power supply or
its persistent switch, the total current in the coil ows through the
diodes and resistors in parallel with the coil. When a lead fails, the
current decay time constant for the coil current can be quite long.
It is desirable that the coil quench in a time that is short compared
to the coil current decay time constant. Experience shows that the
heating from the resistors and diodes will eventually quench the
magnet. This paper presents methods for shortening the time be-
tween a lead failure or a persistent switch failure and the eventual
magnet quench.
Index TermsHTS leads, LTS leads, quench protection.
I. INTRODUCTION
T
HERE is a class of low current superconducting (S/C)
magnets that have large self-inductances. These magnets
can be cooled using small coolers. Many of these magnets are
continuously powered from an external power supply. It can be
argued that MRI magnets fall into this class, but they only do so
during the time that they are being powered to full current. These
magnets are often designed to have quench protection systems
that are completely passive.
LBNL started building magnets of this type when they built
three Superbend dipoles for the Advanced Light Source (ALS)
in the late 1990s [1], [2]. A solenoid magnet for testing the
effect of a magnetic eld on high gradient RF cavities at room
temperature built in 1998 is a similar type of magnet [3].
The Venus ion source magnet built in 2003, is also magnet of
this type. The Venus magnet was combined with an efcient
cooling loop [4]. The Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment
(MICE) cooling channel superconducting solenoids carry the
design concept to the extreme [5]. The MICE cooling channel
solenoids were the rst magnets built by LBNL to employ a
sub-divided solenoid magnets with resistors and back-to-back
Manuscript received September 12, 2011; accepted October 25, 2011. Date
of publication November 03, 2011; date of current version May 24, 2012. This
work was supported by the Ofce of Science, DOE under Contract DE-AC02-
05CH11231.
The authors are with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA
94720 USA (e-mail: magreen@lbl.gov).
Color versions of one or more of the gures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TASC.2011.2174576
Fig. 1. Superconducting magnet circuits that are quench protected using sub-
division with diodes and resistors across the coil sections. The dashed line is
the cryostat boundary. The heavy lines represent the magnet circuits. Inside the
cryostat these are superconducting unless otherwise labeled. The light lines in-
side of the cryostat represent circuits that are in the normal state. The shorted
secondary circuit is a source for quench back, if it is thermally connected to the
superconducting coil and if it has a low enough resistivity. (a) S/C Magnet with
HTS Leads Continously Powered. (b) Persistent S/C Magnet with Retractable
Leads.
diodes across the sub-divisions to reduce the hot spot tempera-
ture and the voltages to ground during the quench process [6],
[7].
A large-inductance sub-divided magnet with resistors and
diodes across the sub-divisions must be designed to quench
when a lead between the superconducting solenoid and the
power supply fails. LBNL experienced two such failures during
testing of the MICE spectrometer solenoid [8], [9]. This paper
reports on what was learned from the experience of having HTS
and LTS leads fail. As a result, other magnets of this type can
be designed to quench safely even if any of the leads between
the power-supply and the magnet coil fail.
II. THE BASIC PASSIVELY PROTECTED S/C MAGNET
Fig. 1 shows two types of low-current high-inductance super-
conducting magnets that utilize quench protection with coil sub-
divisions with back-to-back diodes and resistors in parallel with
each magnet sub-division. Fig. 1 shows a shorted secondary in-
ductively coupled with the superconducting coil. Depending on
1051-8223/$26.00 2011 IEEE
4702204 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 22, NO. 3, JUNE 2012
Fig. 2. The circuit diagramfor the spectrometer solenoid when the LTS portion
of lead D failed in 2010. When lead D failed, current owed through all eight
sets of diodes, but only six resistors.
the secondary circuit material, quench-back may occur during
the quench process [10][12].
The upper part of Fig. 1 is a typical powered magnet that is
protected using diodes and resistors. There are number of places
where the magnet circuit can fail. These failure points are: 1)
the leads between the power supply and the magnet cryostat, 2)
the HTS leads, 3) the LTS leads between the shunt circuits and
the HTS lead, and 4) the shunt circuit diodes and resistors. The
copper leads between 300 K and the tops of the HTS leads are
not subject to failure, because they are designed to carry the full
current of the magnet [13], [14].
The magnet circuit in the lower part of Fig. 1 is the magnet
circuit for a magnet that operates in persistent mode. The magnet
shown is quench protected using diodes and resistors in parallel
with the sub-divided sections of the coil. The potential failure
points for this magnet circuit are; 1) the persistent switch, 2) the
LTS leads between the coil and the switch, and 3) the shunt cir-
cuit diodes and resistors. The retractable leads are robust. These
leads are only connected to the coil during a controlled magnet
charge and discharge.
III. LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE SPECTROMETER SOLENOID
Fig. 2 shows the ow of current in the magnet and its quench
protection system after the LTS lead D on coil M2 failed in
March of 2010. The same pattern prevailed when the HTS lead
H failed in the summer of 2009. The cause of both failures is
well understood [8], [15].
In both instances when the lead failed, the current in the cir-
cuit owed through resistors R1, R2, R3, R4, R5 and R9. No cur-
rent owed through three resistors R6, R7, and R8. The heating
generated by current ow through the eight diodes and the six
resistors caused the spectrometer magnet center coil to quench.
We were lucky that the coil quenched before the diodes and re-
sistors failed. Had the resistors and diodes been in the cryostat
vacuum, we might not have been so lucky. Fig. 3 shows the
failed HTS lead. Fig. 4 shows the resistors and diodes as in-
stalled in 2007. Fig. 5 shows the resistors that had seen two
failures of the leads. The six resistors that carried current were
Fig. 3. The HTS leads as they were installed in the spectrometer solenoid. The
burned out lead H is on the far right hand side of the photo. The burned out
section is about one third of the way down from the top of the lead.
Fig. 4. The diodes and resistors as installed in the spectrometer solenoid. The
0.02- resistors are on the left and the back-to-back diodes are on the right. The
diodes are connected to the coils and the resistors using number 2 cable.
Fig. 5. The spectrometer solenoid resistors after two lead failures in Magnet
2. The resistors that carried the current when the leads failed are discolored and
warped. (Note the burned G-10 sheet that was near the discolored resistors in the
upper part of the photo.) The resistors that didnt carry current were unchanged
and there was no burning of the G-10 near these resistors.
discolored and warped. The other resistors showed no signs of
heating.
IV. PREVENTION OF LTS AND HTS LEAD FAILURE
A. Prevention of LTS Lead Failure
The prevention of lead failure of leads between the magnet
and the bottom of the HTS leads is of high importance because
of the inaccessibility of such leads. The leads that leave the su-
perconducting coil should be shunted with extra copper. This
includes leads that must have some exibility in them to allow
the magnet cold mass to move with respect to the bottom of
the HTS lead. The HTS leads are often supported off of the top
plate of the cryostat turret. The cold mass is often separately
supported so that the center position of the magnet is unchanged
[16]. There is motion between the cold mass and the bottom of
the HTS leads as the cold mass is cooled-down. This motion can
be several millimeters.
GREEN et al.: PROTECTING LEADS OF POWERED MAGNET THAT IS PROTECTED WITH DIODES AND RESISTORS 4702204
The key to avoiding failure of the LTS leads is to make sure
that they are well supported, have a large temperature margin,
and have a minimum propagation zone (MPZ) length [17] that
is at least as long as the LTS lead length [18]. An expression for
MPZ that can be applied to composite conductors is given as
follows;
(1)
where is the Lorenz number ;
is the local S/C critical temperature; and is the operating
temperature. is the current density in the conductor; is
the matrix material resistivity; and r is the matrix material to
superconductor ratio. If the disturbance is short (say caused by
conductor motion), a quench wont propagate if the LTS lead
length is less than MPZ. The longer the lead MPZ, the more
energy it takes to cause the lead to quench.
The equation above assumes that there is no transverse heat
transfer from the conductor. The MPZ is longer if there is trans-
verse heat transfer. The effects of transverse heat ow is dis-
cussed in [18]. If there is no transverse heat ow the LTS lead
current density should be and the matrix resis-
tivity should be in order to get MPZ lengths
of the order of 200 mm.
LTS leads that are in liquid helium or helium gas can be
made to be cryogenically stable [19], [20], but this does not
apply for LTS leads in a vacuum. Extra copper, extra temper-
ature margin, and good heat transfer to the cold mass are essen-
tial when the LTS lead is in vacuum. Finally, an LTS lead sitting
in vacuum must be shielded from thermal radiation coming in
from a source at 300 K.
B. Prevention of HTS Lead Failure
HTS leads by their very nature are poor conductors of heat in
the direction of current. Any low resistivity shunt material that
might allow one to achieve a long MPZ would increase the heat
ow down the HTS leads to unacceptable levels.
One prevents the HTS leads from burning out by anchoring
the HTS leads at their ends. The low temperature end should
be anchored to the cold mass through a exible copper strip.
The expected heat ow down a pair of 500 A HTS-110 leads is
about 155 mW when the leads operate at full current. The high
temperature end of the lead, which is connected to the copper
or brass leads coming in from room temperature, must be well
anchored thermally to the rst stages of the coolers. The heat
ow from room temperature should be minimized by proper
copper lead design [13], [14].
The most important single factor is the temperature at the top
of the HTS leads. The HTS-110 lead design current is set at a
temperature of 64 K with no magnetic eld on the leads. The
current the lead will carry is a function of the temperature at the
top of the lead, the magnitude of the magnetic eld at the top of
the lead, and the direction of the magnetic eld with respect to
the at surface of the BSSCO in the lead [21]. The lead current
goes down with magnetic eld and the current is even lower if
the eld is perpendicular to the at face [22].
There are three factors that are important for ensuring that
the leads operate at the correct temperature. These factors are:
1) The 1st-stage cooler temperature should be 50 K. If the
cooler 1st-stage temperature is too high, one must add either a
single-stage cooler [23] or more two-stage coolers. This has the
added benet of having a colder magnet shield and lower heat
leak to the 4 K cold mass. Lower 1st stage temperatures trans-
late to more cooling on the 2nd-stage. 2) The temperature drop
between the tops of the HTS lead, which is connected to the
copper lead coming in from room temperature, must be mini-
mized. Within the MICE lead cooler experiment [14], we mea-
sured temperature drops as high as 9 K. If the temperature drop
is minimized, the temperature at the top of the HTS lead will be
55 K. 3) The temperature distribution within the copper plate
attached to the cooler 1st-stage and the tops of the HTS leads
must be as uniform as possible [23].
If there is a power failure or if the temperature of the copper
plate exceeds 64 K, the magnet should be put into a rapid dis-
charge (without quenching the magnet) [24]. The boil-off gas
generated by a rapid discharge can be used to provide cooling
to the copper plate attached to the tops of the HTS leads [25].
If the temperature of the copper plate near any of the leads ex-
ceeds 70 K, the magnet must be quenched to protect the HTS
leads. Current must not be allowed to ow into the magnet if
the copper plate temperature exceeds 64 K.
C. Protection of the Diodes and Resistors
The diodes and resistors are protected when the magnet
quenches, provided the mass of the resistor exceeds 2 kg per
ohm of resistance. If the resistor resistance is high ,
the magnet will turn normal through quench back provided it
has a mandrel made from aluminum [12] or good copper. The
product of mandrel resistivity and mandrel enthalpy change
between 4 and 10 K should be minimized [10]. Quench back
will not occur from a stainless steel mandrel [12].
Most magnets that are protected by diodes and resistors have
resistor resistances that are in the range from 0.01 to 0.05 ohms.
When the resistances across the coil subdivision are low, the
time constant for coil current decay after the quench protection
diodes have been red is quite long. During a discharge of a
magnet through its quench protection resistors and diodes, the
heat produced by the diodes and resistors is quite large. An ex-
pression for this discharge heating per magnet sub-division
at the start of the coil discharge is as follows;
(2)
where is the magnet starting current; is the diode forward
voltage; and is the protection resistor resistance. If
, and , . Since
it takes only 2 kJ to heat 1000 kg of cold mass from 4 K to
10 K, there is plenty of energy from the resistors and diodes to
quench the magnet. The key is getting the heat from the diodes
and resistors into the cold mass. It is clear from Fig. 5 that the
primary mode of heat transfer fromthe resistors to the cold mass
was by radiative heat transfer, once the liquid helium around the
resistors and diodes was boiled away.
4702204 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 22, NO. 3, JUNE 2012
The resistors can be encased within the cold mass, but the
resistors must have full ground plane insulation between them
and the coil. The resistors can be encased in copper, outside of
the cold mass. The copper conducts the heat generated in the re-
sistors to the cold mass. There should be Kapton lm insulation
between the resistor and the copper, so that heat is conducted
directly from the resistors and diodes to the copper with a low
temperature drop (say 50 C). The liquid helium in the system
may have to be boiled away before enough heat can be trans-
ported to the cold mass to quench the magnet.
There is a time constant to transport the heat fromthe resistors
to the coil, but this time constant is small compared to the time
needed to boil away helium that is in contact with the cold mass.
Even in a magnet like the MICE spectrometer solenoid, which
has 180 liters of liquid helium in the tank, the time to quench
is 50 s. It is important that the coil circuit be congured so
that all of the quench protection resistors are involved when the
coil is discharged through the resistors. The cables that connect
the coil to the diodes and the diodes to the resistors should have
a continuous current rating that is 40 percent of the magnet
design current .
V. DELIBERATE QUENCHING OF A MAGNET PROTECTED USING
RESISTORS AND DIODES
As with many superconducting magnet systems, there is
more than one way to deliberately quench a magnet protected
by diodes and resistors. One can use a separate heater, with the
problems associated with such heaters in coils, or one can use
the resistors and diodes themselves to quench the magnet. If
one wants to quench a magnet properly protected with resistors
and diodes, all one has to do is re the diodes in the quench
protection system. Once current ows through the diodes and
resistors, the circuit will continue to carry current until the
magnet has nished quenching.
In upper part of Fig. 1, an external resistor across the coil is
shown. If the power supply is disconnected from the magnet
by the switch in the external line, there is a voltage across the
magnet. If the voltage is high enough to re the quench pro-
tection diodes, the magnet will quench. The voltage across the
resistor must be greater than the forward voltage of all of the
diodes in the magnet quench protection system. This voltage is
10 Vper quench protection sub-division at 4.2 K. This voltage
will be higher for a magnet operating at 2 K.
VI. CONCLUSION
The failure of the HTS leads in the spectrometer solenoid can
be prevented by making sure that the copper plate connected
to the tops of the HTS leads is less than 55 K. The two stage
coolers will operate better if the cooler rst-stages are at 45 K
or lower. The LTS leads connecting the superconducting coils
to the HTS leads should have MPZ lengths that are greater than
the lead length. The LTS leads should be well cooled and well
supported as well. The heat from the diodes and resistors must
quench the magnet coils, if there is a lead failure. If this feature
is incorporated into the magnet design, the magnet may be delib-
erately quenched with an external resistor that res the quench
protection diodes.
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