Design and manufacture of a large-bore 10 T superconducting dipole for the CERN cable test facility

A large-bore 10 T superconducting dipole magnet was designed and fabricated in close cooperation between CERN and HMA Power Systems. The dipole has a length of about 1.7 m and an aperture of 88 mm and is composed of two two-layer poles wound with NbTi cables cooled to 1.9 K to reach magnetic inductions close to 10 T. This dipole will be installed at the CERN cable test facility and used as a background field magnet to test LHC superconducting cables. In its large aperture up to four cable samples can be tested at the same time. The mechanical design of the magnet is such that coil prestress variations between warm and fold conditions are kept within 20 MPa. A short model was also built and cooled down in order to check and confirm with test results the mechanical behavior of the dipole. Magnetic measurements, at room temperature, were performed upon its arrival at CERN prior to installation in the test facility. The dipole was recently cooled down and tested. This paper discusses the design, the main manufacturing steps and the initial test results.