Cooling Strings of Superconducting Devices below 2 K: the Helium II Bayonet Heat Exchanger

High-energy particle accelerators and colliders contain long strings of superconducting devices - acceleration RF cavities and magnets - operating at high field, which may require cooling in helium II below 2 K. In order to maintain adequate operating conditions, the applied or generated heat loads must be extracted and transported with minimum temperature difference. Conventional cooling schemes based on conductive or convective heat transport in pressurized helium II very soon reach their intrinsic limits of thermal impedance over extended lengths. We present the concept of helium II bayonet heat exchanger, which has been developed at CERN for the magnet cooling scheme of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and describe its specific advantages as a slim, quasi-isothermal heat sink. Experimental results obtained on several test set-ups, and a prototype magnet string have permitted to validate its performance and sizing rules, for transporting linear heat loads in the W.m-1 range over distances of several tens of meters.