FEAC is happy to announce that we won the prestigious Ansys Hall Of Fame Award in 2014

FEAC simulation depicts the multiphysics of the Nb3Sn (Cb3Sn) superconducting accelerator magnet in the CERN Hadron Collider.

The Best-in-class award was passed onto FEAC for their simulation of the Nb3Sn (Cb3Sn) superconducting accelerator magnet in the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

By replacing the 8.33 T NbTn (CbTn) dipol magnets with 11 T Nb3Sn dipol magnets, additional cryo collimators could be spaced into the LHC system. This created challenges, however, such as iron saturation, coil magnetization/fabrication, transfer function matching, quench protection, thermal analysis of the coils, rigid mechanical analysis and integration.

By integrating the CAD tools and FEA multiphysics of ANSYS, control of the system remained in one workbench with easy management of files, data and CAD designs.

The design of the parametric model was done in CATIA and transferred into ANSYS DesignModeler for all the necessary modifications. The electromagnetic physics was analyzed using Emag (3D) and ANSYS Maxwell (2D and 3D) for comparison. In Maxwell, the Lorentz forces were determined using a direct linkage between the structural analysis. However, APDL macros were used to determine the Lorentz factors for Emag.

Due to the extreme cryogenic cold of the system (1.9 K), the thermal analysis (2D and 3D) was performed by ANSYS Mechanical and APDL macros.

The results of the FEA were compared to strain gage valves and were seen to have a great correlation.