A System Approach to the Design of Superconducting Magnets

Abstract

The design of superconducting magnets poses numerous technical, engineering and physics challenges to ensure that the magnets, when installed in the operational environment, will satisfy performance requirements of the accelerator. The discussion presented here will address the systematic, methodical process, as applied by the magnet system design engineer, that defines magnet performance requirements, the allocation of requirements to magnet components, and the development of design solutions which will satisfy the requirements. The approach presented will show how the system engineer parses top-level performance requirements as established by the system specification (“shall” statements), develops design solutions, performs design trades to ensure selection of the best solution in terms of life-cycle cost and performance, verifies the design through analysis and computer modelling, and then validates the design by build-and-test. The process shows the methods for achieving traceability of design and correlation of design solutions to performance parameters.

Operated by the Universities Research Association, Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-89ER40486.