Quench protection circuit for superconducting magnet coils
AssigneeGeneral Electric Company
InventorsAnbo WU, Minfeng XU, Xianrui HUANG
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A superconducting magnet includes at least one superconducting coil and a quench protection circuit electrically coupled to said at least one coil in parallel. The circuit includes at least one quench heater assembly thermally coupled to the at least one coil, and at least one superconducting current limiter electrically connected in series with the at least one quench heater assembly. The superconducting current limiter has a superconducting state with zero resistance, and a normal state with a normal resistance to decrease an electric current flowing through the quench heater assembly.
Claims17
A superconducting magnet, comprising:
- at least one superconducting coil;
- and
- a quench protection circuit electrically coupled to said at least one coil in parallel, the circuit comprising:
- at least one quench heater assembly thermally coupled to the at least one coil;
- and
- at least one superconducting current limiter electrically connected in series with the at least one quench heater assembly, wherein the superconducting current limiter has a superconducting state with zero resistance, and a normal state with a normal resistance to decrease an electric current flowing through the quench heater assembly.
A superconducting magnet system comprising:
- a thermal shield;
- at least one superconducting coil in the thermal shield;
- a vacuum vessel enclosing the thermal shield;
- and
- a quench protection circuit electrically coupled to said at least one superconducting coil in parallel, the circuit comprising:
- at least one quench heater thermally coupled to the at least one superconducting coil;
- and
- at least one superconducting current limiter connected in series with the at least one quench heater assembly, the at least current limiter comprising a superconducting state with zero resistance and normal state with a finite resistance.
A method for quenching superconducting coils, comprising:
- coupling a quench protection circuit in parallel to at least one superconducting coil, wherein said quench protection circuit comprises at least one quench heater assembly and at least one superconducting current limiter;
- triggering a quench event caused by an increasing quench voltage across the at least one superconducting coil;
- powering the quench heater upon said quench event and normalizing the at least one superconducting coil at heater regions;
- and
- turning the superconducting current limiter from a superconducting state to a normal state to increase the resistance of the quench protection circuit heater branch and limit the current of quench heater assembly to be less than its maximum allowable current.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.