Contact problems in the design of a superconducting quadrupole prototype

This paper focuses on the design of a superconducting quadrupole prototype. This structure includes many frictional contact zones, and the loading conditions are complex (mechanical, thermal and magnetic). A dedicated computational strategy, based on both a decomposition of the structure and an iterative resolution scheme, has been applied to solve this problem. A simplified approach is used to take complex loading conditions into account. The initial set of results, which are presented herein, demonstrates the interest of this approach with respect to classical finite element methods. This study was conducted within the framework of a joint research contract between the CEA (DSM/DPANIA/STCM) and LMT‐Cachan.