[Table of Contents]

Plasma and Fusion Research

Volume 10, 3405012 (2015)

Regular Articles


Plan for Testing High-Current Superconductors for Fusion Reactors with A 15 T Test Facility
Shinsaku IMAGAWA, Tetsuhiro OBANA, Suguru TAKADA, Shinji HAMAGUCHI, Hirotaka CHIKARAISHI, Nagato YANAGI, Kazuya TAKAHATA, Akifumi IWAMOTO, Shuichi YAMADA and Toshiyuki MITO
National Institute for Fusion Science, Toki 509-5292, Japan
(Received 19 November 2014 / Accepted 20 January 2015 / Published 27 February 2015)

Abstract

Fusion power plants need larger scale and higher field superconducting magnets than the ITER magnets. Therefore, higher current superconductors with high strength against strong electromagnetic forces are needed. In order to examine the superconducting properties of such large conductors in real conditions, we are preparing a new test facility that is equipped with a solenoid coil of the highest field of 13 T with the bore of 0.7 m, a pair of temperature-variable current leads, and a vacuum chamber for conductor samples. The highest field can be increased to 15 T by installing an additional coil with the cold bore of 0.6 m. Since the inlet temperature of the samples can be varied from 4.4 K to 50 K, it is possible to examine properties of advanced conductors at actual operating temperatures including high-temperature superconductors. We propose coil-shaped conductor samples instead of straight samples in order to apply electromagnetic hoop forces on the conductors to realize the real condition. A reference design of a sample for a cable-in-conduit conductor is provided.


Keywords

cable-in-conduit conductor, high magnetic field, Nb3Sn, superconducting magnet, test facility

DOI: 10.1585/pfr.10.3405012


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This paper may be cited as follows:

Shinsaku IMAGAWA, Tetsuhiro OBANA, Suguru TAKADA, Shinji HAMAGUCHI, Hirotaka CHIKARAISHI, Nagato YANAGI, Kazuya TAKAHATA, Akifumi IWAMOTO, Shuichi YAMADA and Toshiyuki MITO, Plasma Fusion Res. 10, 3405012 (2015).