Heat leak performance of SSC collider dipole magnets

The large number of superconducting dipoles in the SSC results in a stringent heat leak budget for each dipole. Ensuring that the dipoles meet this budget is vital to the successful operation of the collider. This work surveys heat leak measurements taken during 4 different magnet string tests. These tests involved both 40 mm and 50 mm aperture dipoles. In these experiments the heat leak to the 80 K shield, 20 K shield and cold mass are measured. The results are compared to predictions from a computational thermal model of the dipole cryostat. Discrepancies are seen between the predicted and measured values. Possible explanations for these discrepancies are given. >