LHC inner triplet powering strategy

In order to achieve a luminosity in excess of 10³⁴ cm ^-2 s^-1 at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), special high gradient quadrupoles are required for the final focusing triplets. These low-P triplets, located in the four experimental insertions (ATLAS, CMS, ALICE, LHC-B), consist of four wide-aperture superconducting magnets: two outer quadrupoles, Q1 and Q3, with a maximum current of 7 kA and a central one divided into two identical magnets, Q2a and Q2b, with a maximum current of 11.5 kA. To optimise the powering of these mixed quadrupoles, it was decided to use two nested high-current power converters : [8 kA, 8 V] and [6 kA, 8 V]. This paper presents the consequence of the interaction between the two galvanically coupled circuits. A control strategy, using two independent, standard, LHC digital controllers, to decouple the two systems is proposed and described. The converter protection during the discharge of the magnet energy due to quenches or interlocks of the magnets are discussed. Simulation and experimental prototypes were used to validate these results