MEASUREMENT OF THE RESIDUAL RESISTIVITY RATIO OF THE BUS BARS COPPER STABILIZER OF THE 13 kA CIRCUITS OF THE LHC

After the incident of September 2008, the operational beam energy of the LHC has been set to 3.5 TeV, since not all joints of the superconducting (SC) bus bars between magnets have the required quality for 7 TeV operation. This decision is based on simulations to determine the safe current in the main dipole and quadrupole circuits, reproducing the thermal behaviour of a quenched superconducting joint by taking into account all relevant factors that affect a possible thermal runaway. One important parameter is the Residual Resistivity Ratio (RRR) of the copper stabilizer of the bus bar connecting the superconducting magnets. A dedicated campaign to measure the RRR for the main 13 kA circuits of the LHC in all sectors was performed during the Christmas stop in December 2010 and January 2011. The measurement method as well as the data analysis and results are presented in this paper.