Progress report on the production of 1.8 million feet of superconducting cable for the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider Project at BNL

摘要

The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) Project under construction at BNL will enable collisions between beams of nuclei as heavy as (sup 197)Au, accelerated in two quasi-circular rings to a maximum energy of 100 GeV/u. The bending and focusing of the beams is done by dipole and quadrupole magnets constructed primarily from 30-strand Rutherford-type cable. This is a progress report on the manufacture of superconductor which is a key technical component for the accelerator. A conservative specification was placed on the superconducting properties. Requested minimum J(sub c) is 2600 A/mm(sup 2) at 5T, 4.2 K and the copper-to-non-copper ratio (C/S) is designed to be 2.25. In order to provide a degree of control of the low field magnetization of the superconducting material, the quantity I(sub c)(3T)/I(sub c)(5T) or ''3/5 ratio'' is specified for the wire. The production contract for RHIC superconducting cable was awarded to Oxford superconducting Technology (OST) in September 1991 with conductor fabrication beginning in January 1992. Approximately 112,000 pounds (51 tonnes) of superconductor will be required to produce 1.86 M feet (566 km) of 30-strand cable. Approximately eighteen months have been scheduled for conductor manufacturing with an overlapping period for cabling resulting in a total contract duration of two years.