An open refrigerator cooled superconducting magnet for the special purpose of magnetic resonance imaging

Author

Xu, Bu-Xin ; Mruzek, M. ; Eckels, P. ; Wang, Wan-Xian ; Tan, Yulan ; Dorri, B. ; Ogle, M.

Author_Institution

GE Med. Syst., Florence, SC, USA

Volume

32

Issue

4

fYear

1996

fDate

7/1/1996 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

2640

Lastpage

2642

Abstract

A 10 K refrigerator cooled superconducting magnet with an open-ended, C-shaped iron core was developed and tested for the special purpose of magnetic resonance imaging. The magnet employs a single Nb3Sn tape superconducting coil and an open-ended iron loop. The superconducting coil Is cooled and maintained at the 10 K operational temperature by a Gifford-McMahon (G-M) cryocooler. The magnetic field in the iron open gap is used for magnetic resonance imaging. The field homogeneity is achieved by contoured iron pole faces and specially developed passive shimming procedures. We have achieved less than 1 ppm/hour field stability and a 29 ppm field homogeneity over a 10 cm diameter spherical volume. High quality images have been produced using this magnet

Keywords

biomedical NMR; cooling; refrigeration; superconducting magnets; 10 K; Fe; Gifford-McMahon cryocooler; Nb3Sn tape superconducting coil; Nb₃Sn; contoured pole faces; magnetic field; magnetic resonance imaging; open refrigerator cooled superconducting magnet; open-ended C-shaped iron core; passive shimming; Iron; Magnetic cores; Magnetic fields; Magnetic resonance imaging; Niobium-tin; Refrigeration; Superconducting coils; Superconducting magnets; Temperature; Testing;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Magnetics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9464

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/20.511416

Filename

511416