A novel approach to quench detection for high temperature superconducting coils

A novel approach to quench detection for high temperature superconducting (HTS) coils is proposed, which is mainly based on phase angle between voltage and current of two coils to detect the quench resistance voltage. The approach is analyzed theoretically, verified experimentally and analytically by MATLAB Simulink and LabVIEW. An analog quench circuit is built on Simulink and a quench alarm system program is written in LabVIEW. Experiment of quench detection is further conducted. The sinusoidal AC currents ranging from 19.9 A to 96 A are transported to the HTS coils, whose critical current is 90 A at 77 K. The results of analog simulation and experiment are analyzed and they show good consistency. It is shown that with the increase of current, the phase undergoes apparent growth, and it is up to 60° and 15° when the current reaches critical value experimentally and analytically, respectively. It is concluded that the approach proposed in this paper can meet the need of precision and quench resistance voltage can be detected in time.