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Description
A low-cryogen compact 7T MRI system(C7T) dedicated for brain imaging has been developed at the GE HealthCare Technology and Innovation Center. The C7T magnet utilizes a fully sealed helium cooling system. Only 12 liters of liquid helium are condensed at 4.2 K from high pressure gaseous helium charged at room temperature. The C7T magnet is designed for a B0-field homogeneity <1.0 ppm in a 26-cm field-of-view. Both active superconducting shim coils and passive shimming are applied for shimming the C7T magnet. This C7T MRI system has a similar footprint and weight of a clinical whole-body 3T MRI scanner. C7T will greatly improve the access of ultra-high-field MRI brain imaging for a more diverse group of patients.
A Cryomech MPC600 helium circulation system is applied to firstly pre-cool the C7T magnet down to about 50 K, then three SHI RDE-412 cryocoolers cool the cold mass down to 3.4-3.5 K to its equilibrium state. The C7T magnet cool-down, energization and quench protection performance will be reported in this paper.
Acknowledgment
Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number U01EB026976. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
