A superconducting synchrotron power supply and quench protection scheme

The power supply and quench protection scheme for the proposed Fermilab 6 km circumference superconducting synchrotron is described. Specifically, the following points will be discussed: 1, the 46 MW thyristor power supply; 2, the 3 × 10⁸joule emergency energy dump; 3, the distributed microprocessing system for the detection of quenches; 4, the thyristor network for shunting current around quenched magnets; and 5, the heaters internal to the magnets which cause rapid propagation of quenches. Test results on prototype systems are given.