Axis measurements, field quality and quench performance of the first LHC short straight sections

The series testing at 1.9 K of the 360 Short Straight Sections (SSS) for the Large Hadron Collider have started at CERN in September 2003. The SSS contain the lattice quadrupoles and correction magnets in a common cryostat. The lattice quadrupoles feature two collared coils with 56 mm bore assembled in a common yoke. The coils are wound in two-layers from 15.1 mm wide NbTi cable, insulated with polyimide tape. The paper reviews the main test results performed in superfluid helium. The magnetic field and magnetic center position of the quadrupoles and associated correctors were measured with two independent systems, namely an automated scanner and a single stretched wire technique. The quench training, the field quality and the magnetic alignment measurements are presented and discussed in terms of the specifications and expected performances of these magnets in the LHC. We discuss in detail the field quality in terms of multipole errors measured at injection and nominal field and decomposed into geometric and persistent current magnetization errors. Warm/cold correlation for the geometric multipoles and the magnetic axis is also presented.peer-reviewe