Heat load measurements on a large superconducting magnet: an application of a void fraction meter

ATLAS is one of the two major experiments of the LHC project at CERN using cryogenics. The superconducting magnet system of ATLAS is composed of the barrel toroid (BT), two end caps toroids and the Central Solenoid. The BT is formed of 8 race-track superconducting dipoles, each one 25 m long and 5 m wide. A reduced scale prototype (named B0) of one of the 8 dipoles, about one third of the length, has been constructed and tested in a dedicated cryogenic facility at CERN. To simulate the final thermal and hydraulic operating conditions, the B0 was cooled by a forced flow of 4.5 K saturated liquid helium provided by a centrifugal pump of 80 g/s nominal capacity. Both static and dynamic heat loads, generated by the induced currents on the B0 casing during a slow dump or a ramp up, have been measured to verify the expected thermal budget of the entire BT. The instrument used for the heat load measurements was a void fraction meter (VFM) installed on the magnet return line. The instrument constructed at CERN was calibrated in order to provide direct readings of heat loads. An example of application of the VFM measuring method to a large-scale apparatus cooled at liquid helium temperature.