Test Station for a 30 m long Superconducting Link

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) requires distribution of high electrical currents in the limited space of LHC tunnel. Four superconducting links of about 76 m length and one of 510 m will be installed in the tunnel to carry 6Â kA and 600 A. For validation of the longest link a test station was designed which is presently under construction. The design will permit the test station to be adapted for other links and/or cables as well. It will operate either in pool boiling mode, in order to measure thermal loads, or in forced super-critical helium flow mode to simulate real operation. Inlet pressure is 1.2 bar to 3 bar. Inlet temperature is adjustable from 4.4 K up to about 20 K. The station is being prepared to validate the LHC model link, consisting of 48 superconducting cables, each operating at 600 A between 4.5 K and 5.4 K. This article describes features of the equipment.