Detecting and Positioning the Insulation Failure of Pulsed Magnets

Pulsed magnets are usually damaged because of the insulation failure, and the insulation failure will eventually trigger the ultimate structure failure and ends up with explosion. Hence, the insulation failure investigation is very important for pulsed magnets. The investigation has to begin with detecting and positioning the fault point to know when and where the insulation fault occurs. Detecting and positioning the insulation failure will provide experimental data for revealing the mechanism of the insulation breakdown. On the other hand, detecting and positioning the insulation failure is an important technique to predict the lifetime of a magnet and to avoid the risk of magnet explosions. A detection coil matrix that is able to detect and locate the insulation failure as well as the preliminary experimental results is presented in this paper.