A digital quench detection system for superconducting magnets

A system has been developed for digitally detecting superconducting magnet quenches in real time. This system has been fully tested and is completely integrated into a Vertical Magnet Test Facility (VMTF) at FNAL. The digital technique used for this system relies on the application of digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms running on a native Motorola PowerPC VME processor. The performance of this digital system has been shown to be superior to the analog technology typically used for quench detection; i.e., it detects resistive voltages reliably at low thresholds with minimum delay and is a more flexible system.