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High temperature superconductors (HTS) may become in future an option for the superconducting magnets of commercial fusion plants. At the Swiss Plasma Center (SPC) the R&D activity toward HTS high current, high field cables suitable for fusion magnets started in 2012 and led in 2015 to the assembly of the first 60 kA, 12 T prototype conductor. The cable concept developed at the SPC is based on the principle of ‘soldered, twisted stacks’ of REBCO tapes. The required number of stacks is assembled in a cored flat cable, cooled by forced flow of supercritical helium. The sample environment of the test facility at SPC has been upgraded with a HTS adapter and a counter-flow heat exchanger to allow testing the HTS sample in a broader range of temperature (4.5 K–50 K) using the existing, NbTi based superconducting transformer and the closed loop refrigerator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The AC loss measurements of the high temperature superconductor (HTS) cable prototype in the EDIPO test facility motivated detailed investigations of the loss contributions from the tape, strand and cable stages of the HTS fusion conductor design proposed at the Swiss Plasma Center. As an initial step of the task, magnetization tests of soldered stacks of HTS tapes were carried out at temperatures of 5 and and magnetic fields up to using the vibrating sample magnetometer technique. The influence on the magnetization loss of the number of tapes, width of the tape, field’s orientation and tape’s manufacturer is studied experimentally performing both the major and minor magnetization loops with different ramp rates of the applied magnetic field. In order to validate the test results, a numerical model is developed and presented in this work. From the numerical model we also deduced an analytical approach for the magnetization loss in the stacks of tapes with arbitrary number of tapes in the critical state model. Comparison between the measured and estimated magnetization loss of the cable prototypes is reported as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the first test campaign of the 60 kA HTS cable prototypes in the EDIPO test facility, the feasibility of a novel HTS fusion cable concept proposed at the EPFL Swiss Plasma Center (SPC) was successfully demonstrated. While the measured DC performance of the prototypes at magnetic fields from 8 T to 12 T and for currents from 30 kA to 70 kA was close to the expected one, an initial electromagnetic cycling test (1000 cycles) revealed progressive degradation of the performance in both the SuperPower and SuperOx conductors. Aiming to understand the reasons for the degradation, additional cycling (1000 cycles) and warm up-cool down tests were performed during the second test campaign. Ic performance degradation of the SuperOx conductor reached ∼20% after about 2000 cycles, which was reason to continue with a visual inspection of the conductor and further tests at 77 K. AC tests were carried out at 0 and 2 T background fields without transport current and at 10 T/50 kA operating conditions. Results obtained in DC and AC tests of the second test campaign are presented and compared with appropriate data published recently. Concluding the first iteration of the HTS cable development program at SPC, a summary and recommendations for the next activity within the HTS fusion cable project are also reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coated conductors could be promising materials for the fabrication of the large magnet systems of future fusion devices. Two prototype conductors (flat cables in steel conduits), each about 2 m long, were manufactured using coated conductor tapes (4 mm wide) from Super Power and SuperOx, with a total tape length of 1.6 km. Each flat cable is assembled from 20 strands, each strand consisting of a stack of 16 tapes surrounded by two half circular copper profiles, twisted and soldered. The tapes were measured at 12 T and 4.2 K and the results of the measurements were used for the assessment of the conductor electromagnetic properties at low temperature and high field. The two conductors were assembled together in a sample that was tested in the European Dipole (EDIPO) facility. The current sharing temperatures of the two conductors were measured at background fields from 8 T up to 12 T and for currents from 30 kA up to 70 kA: the measured values are within a few percent of the values expected from the measurements on tapes (short samples). After electromagnetic cycling, Tcs at 12 T and 50 kA decreased from about 12 K to 11 K (about 10%), corresponding to less than 3% of Ic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]