Globally optimal superconducting homogeneous magnet design for an asymmetric 3.0 T head MRI scanner

This paper describes a hybrid numerical method with a combination of linear programming (LP) and nonlinear programming to design an asymmetric magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system for head imaging. The method was successfully employed to a 0.7 T open-style MRI. Recently, we have updated the LP mathematical model in the hybrid optimization strategy by adding maximum axial and radial magnetic field strength limitation to make the magnet safe. The whole magnet consists of eight coaxial coils asymmetry about the z-axis. The six innermost coils are the main coils with positive current direction and the two outermost coils are shielding coils with negative current direction. All coils contribute their efforts to produce a central magnetic field strength of 3.0 T over a 20 cm diameter of spherical volume, and the peak to peak homogeneity is 12 ppm. The temperature bore for the magnet is formed with two different diameters cylindrical bores which makes head and shoulder access to the imaging volume easier. A 5 Gauss footprint area is restricted larger than an elliptical region with the sizes of 3.5 m in radial and 4.0 m in axial direction. The results show that the methodology is very flexible and efficient for asymmetric MRI magnet design.