Investigation on vapor-cooled current leads operating in a pulse mode

Abstract

This paper describes transient numerical modeling for thermal characteristic of vapor-cooled current leads under pulse operation. The transient thermal analysis considers the temperature difference between a helium gas flow and a copper lead with temperature dependent properties of helium gas, copper and stainless steel. The numerical analysis was validated by an experiment with commercially available 100 A vapor-cooled current leads. A proper overloading factor calculation and the effect of intermediate cooling are presented for the current leads under pulse operation, which can significantly reduce heat input to a cryostat. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.