Experimental study for the quench protection system of the 9.4-T whole-body MRI superconducting magnet

The quench protection system with the circuit subdivision and heater network for a whole-body magnetic resonance imaging superconducting magnet has been designed. A test magnet with the similar quench protection design was built. Quench experiments for the test magnet have been conducted to verify a quench simulation code that is used to optimize the quench protection design. The fabrication of the test magnet has been demonstrated. The experimental results have been analyzed. The comparison between the experimental data and the calculated results has been discussed. The quench protection method with the heater network proves to work well, and the quench simulation code is proved to be reliable. © 2002-2011 IEEE.