Progress in the Development of the Nb₃Sn MQXFB Quadrupole for the HiLumi Upgrade of the LHC

Abstract

The high-luminosity upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) requires new high field and large-aperture quadrupole magnets for the low-beta inner triplets (MQXF). With a nominal operating gradient of 132.2 T/m in a 150 mm aperture and a conductor peak field of 11.3 T, the new quadrupole magnets are based on Nb <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sub> Sn superconducting technology. After a series of short models constructed in close collaboration by LARP (LHC Accelerator Research Program) and CERN, the development program is entering in the series production phase with CERN on one side and the US Accelerator Upgrade Project (US-AUP) on the other side assembling and testing full-length magnets. This paper describes the status of the development activities at CERN, in particular on the cold powering test of the first MQFXB prototype and on the construction of the second full scale prototype. Critical operations such as reaction heat treatment, coil impregnation and magnet assembly are discussed. Finally, the plan towards the series production is described.