Modeling of flexible components for asserting the stability of superconducting magnets

Superconducting magnets are subjected to various forces during their cool down and alignment. A good estimate of the deformations arising out of the cool down and alignment operations is necessary as these induce relative displacements between the fiducialised external vessel and hidden cold mass of the magnet. The nonlinear and orthotropic behaviour of these elements may make the model complicated and if solved as a non-linear problem, would entail a large solution time a s the overall model size runs into millions of nodes. The authors developed a unified finite element model of the LHC short straight section and during this process many innovative modelling techniques evolved. The developed model uses isotropic material constitutive laws with linear material properties. This paper presents some of the salient features of these modelling techniques.