Electromagnetic Design Software Optimizes Particle Accelerator Magnets

At CERN, scientists are using the Opera electromagnetic simulation software from Cobham Technical Services to design the magnets needed for the upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in preparation for its high luminosity operation.

Both 2D and 3D versions are modeling a wider variety of the LHC injectors’ normal conducting electromagnets and permanent magnets. Several tens of different magnet types are analyzed using Opera-2d and re-modeled in Opera-3d. The CERN Technology Department is also using Opera to design NC (normal conducting) particle accelerator magnets for other projects.

“With most of our magnet designs, we require very high prediction accuracy of the magnetic field quality in the good field region, typically of the order of 1/10,000 or better,” said Daniel Schoerling, project engineer for NC Magnets in CERN’s Technology Department. “Over the years we have gained confidence in Opera’s magnetostatic simulation performance for solid and laminated yoke magnets, supported by the effective correlation between simulation results and magnetic measurements obtained from manufactured units. When we observe differences higher than a few parts in 10000 we can usually attribute them to factors such as mechanical error or uncertainty of the BH curve of the material used for the magnet’s manufacture. In fact, because of the accuracy of the software’s magnetic length and field quality predictions, with many of our magnet designs we no longer need to incorporate any means of performing post-production field quality correction.”

For more information, visit Cobham Technical Services.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.