Conductor developments for the ATLAS and CMS magnets

Two huge superconducting magnets are proposed for the future detectors of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN: the ATLAS toroidal system and the CMS solenoid. Both designs are based on the use of large aluminium stabilized conductors, built from a cable coextruded with very pure aluminium and, in the CMS case, mechanically reinforced with aluminium alloy; these conductors are now developed by different manufacturers under research contracts handed by CERN. This paper presents results of the critical current density of both strands and cables at different stages of the conductor fabrication, the effect of different treatments on the aluminium residual resistivity ratio (RRR) and the characterization of the bonding between the cable and its stabilizer.