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The central solenoid (CS) coil system of the KSTAR device consists of four pairs of coils with up-down symmetry and a set of support structure. The CS coil system should endure various loads including thermal and electromagnetic load during operation. One of the most important roles of support structure is to preserve the structural stability of coil system from vertical forces by applying the pre-compression on the coil stack. The main assembly procedure of the coil stack is as follows: 1) coil subassembly and stacking, 2) structure assembly, 3) preloading process by heating shells in the support structure, and 4) measurement on the final dimension. The special jigs and heating system for the preloading were designed to apply pre-compression on the coil stack during the assembly at room temperature. Moreover, a few tens of thermocouples and strain gauges were installed for measuring temperature and thermal expansion of preloading structures. Since the final assembly of the CS coil was successfully completed with about 7.3 MN of preloading in 2006, the CS coil system has been experienced four thermal cycles from 300 K to 5 K until 2011. This paper describes the main results of applying the pre-compression on the coil stack and mechanical behaviors of preloading structures during thermal cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The AC loss in a large superconducting magnet coil shows a tendency to be changed after assembly. For the ac loss measurement of the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) superconducting coils after assembly, several current scenarios, trapezoidal pulses and a DC offset sinusoidal pulses, were applied to the PF1 Upper (U) and Lower (L) coils during the commissioning. The measurement was done once before and once after the plasma discharge experiments. All coil data were obtained by the tokamak monitoring system and helium distribution system which were designed to measure temperature, pressure, and mass-flow at both inlets and outlets of the coils. The PF1 coils of the cable-in-conduit conductor type were made of Nb3Sn superconducting strands, whose winding scheme is 20 layers with each layer having 9 turns. Each has 10 cooling channels for the heat removal by the supercritical helium at 4.5 K. For the trapezoidal pulse tests, the current was increased up to 4 kA with several different ramp rates and a 2 kA DC offset and 0.5 kA sine waves with different frequencies from 0.1 Hz to 0.3 Hz were applied to the coil. According to the analyses, the AC loss was slightly decreased for the same condition after 700 plasma shots. It was believe that such a result was due to reduced inter-strand resistances which changed the transverse resistance between the inter-strands. The coupling time constant was estimated to be 32 ms in the trapezoidal tests and 13.6 ms for the DC offset sinusoidal pulses. The former is larger than the latter because of the effect of the jacket eddy current loss due to Incoloy 908 which is a ferromagnetic material. Considering the jacket eddy current losses, the coupling time constant was recalculated and the value estimated to be about 13 ms for all current wave forms during first commissioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To detect quenches in the Poloidal Field (PF) magnet system is more difficult than the Toroidal Field (TF) magnet system due to excessively high inductive voltages generated by PF pulse-currents and plasma currents. According to reference scenarios being considered so far, the maximum voltage across the PF coils is inductively generated up to about 3.5 kV during the start of plasma (SoP) stage in a very short time period. The voltage measured by compensation of the inductive voltage should be below a certain level which is called as the quench voltage threshold. However, the compensated voltage might be higher than the threshold even with the well-designed compensation schemes. Accordingly, the quench voltage threshold and the quench protection delay time should be properly determined for the quench detection not to take a false action which could cause the fast energy discharge. From the quench simulation using the calculation of hot spot temperature and the resistive voltage growth as a function of time, the proper values of the quench detection parameters of the PF magnet system were derived for the maximum hot temperature rise to be limited within 150 K. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research(KSTAR) device, the Toroidal Field (TF) coils were manufactured with Nb3Sn, and the bus lines with NbTi, and all the coils are cooled by supercritical helium. During the first campaign, the TF coils were operated with a steady state current of 15 kA. In case of a quench the conductor is being developed due to an unexpected effect on the superconducting strands, the current should be discharged into an external dump resistor for protection of the magnet. The development or recovery of the quench is related to the protection triggering delay time and the quench voltage. The thermo-hydraulic phenomena were simulated by the GANDALF code and the initial quench propagation condition was found from the minimum quench energy and the initial quench zone. In this paper, we determined the quench voltage level and trigger time by analysis of temperature, voltage, and pressure growth, in the magnet and bus lines, with triggering delays of t = 2 s, 3 s, 4 s, and 5 s, by analysing the effects of a temperature and voltage growth of the magnet and bus lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To protect the KSTAR (Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research) superconducting coils against a quench, the quench detection system based on voltage measurement was fabricated. It used a detect/dump scheme which detects the presence of non-recovering normal zones and activates a dump circuit that transfers most of the stored energy into a dump resistor. Even though it is desirable to discharge the coil energy as fast as possible after quench detection, a time delay between the quench detection and the complete dump circuit actuation will be necessary in order that the quench voltage is to be distinguished from various noises. The quench threshold voltage and the delay time should be set before operation for quench voltage detection so that the maximum hot-spot temperature could be limited to 150 K. This paper describes the hardware techniques to prevent the malfunction of the quench detection due to voltage noises arising from the KSTAR operating scenarios. During the first operation of the KSTAR machine, the inductive voltages and other voltage noises were measured and effectively compensated below voltage thresholds. A quench did not occur and the quench detection system was well operated without any false activation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KSTAR (Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research) superconducting magnet consists of a CICC (Cable-In-Conduit Conductor) and is cooled down less than 5 K using supercritical helium. The length of CICC is 610 m for TF coil and maximum about 2,500 m for PF coil respectively, especially the cooling channel is about maximum 300 m in PF coil because of continuous winding scheme. There are many cooling channels in KSTAR coils especially 84 channels in TF magnet system and 100 channels in PF magnet system. Flow imbalance affects cool down of magnet and leads to a difficulty of flow control. The pressure drop between CICC terminals has a close relationship with CICC hydraulic characteristic, helium refrigerator's performance and efficiency. The friction factor which is a representative parameter can be obtained under cryogenic operation condition. We attempt to find out the friction factor of KSTAR CS and PF CICC according to the test result of KSTAR CSMC (Central Solenoid Model Coil) 2nd campaign and compare the results with previous tests. The hydraulic characteristics of KSTAR superconducting magnet system like mass flow distribution, friction factor in conductor, pressure drop and etc during CSMC test and initial commissioning of KSTAR are presented. We can confirm the KSTAR CICC's unique hydraulic behavior in states of cool down and current charging period. Also, we expect that measured data will help to operate KSTAR and be a reference for thermo-hydraulic simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The KSTAR components requiring cryogenic helium coolant for superconducting magnet operations are connected to the helium refrigeration system (HRS) through the helium distribution system (HDS), the final helium distribution station. Twenty eight cryogenic valves including 4 quench protecting valves, many sensors such as temperature sensors, pressure transmitters, and flowmeters are mounted on the system. The HDS has to control the 4.5 K supercritical helium (600 g/s) for 30 superconducting coils and their superconducting bus-lines, 55 K helium (270 g/s) pressurized to 18 bars for the thermal shields and the gravity supports, and a maximum 17.5 g/s of liquid helium for 18 current leads, provided from the HRS which has a 4.5 K equivalent cooling power of 9kW. The helium distribution system consists of a helium distribution box (DB), 5 helium transfer lines, a PLC based helium control system (HCS), etc. The helium control system is connected to the KSTAR supervisory control & interlock system. The detailed status regarding the construction, commissioning during first cool-down, and the instrumentation & control (I&C) system are included in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The magnet system comprises sixteen toroidal field (TF) coils and fourteen poloidal field (PF) coils for KSTAR (Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research) Tokamak. All the TF coils and 10 PF coils (PF1~ 5 UL) are made of Nb3 Sn strands and 4 PF coils (PF6 ~ 7 UL) are made of NbTi strands. Before operating the superconducting coils, it is critical to verify the operation conditions such as thermo-hydraulic parameters and stability boundaries. In this regards, the TF model coil and CSMC (Central Solenoid Model Coil) have been tested and the operating conditions have been analyzed. Before cool down, parameters such as helium flow through conduits, electrical insulation and coil geometry have been measured at room temperature to confirm the manufacturing soundness. During cool down and current charging, thermo-hydraulic and mechanical parameters by using mechanical sensors have been measured. Also measured was the magnetic field strength in various positions of the coil conductor. Measured data have been analyzed and the results have been compared with the model analysis by simulation code. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) Central Solenoid Model Coil (CSMC) was tested at the National Fusion Research Center (NFRC) to verify the design and manufacturing engineering and to ensure reliable operation. The CSMC reached 8.6 T at 20 kA DC operation successfully. We also assessed the AC loss of the CSMC by means of both a sinusoidal wave with a DC offset as well as a triangular pulse. We derived a friction factor correlation of CSMC at room temperature and at cryogenic temperature (4 ∼ 6 K). We also investigated the variation of the friction factor during current charging. The KSTAR PF coil simulation code was validated with inlet and outlet helium temperature, mass flow rate, and pressure drop from the experimental results. The operation temperature margin of the CS1 coil of KSTAR was calculated with the revised KSTAR PF coil simulation coil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The KSTAR Central Solenoid Model Coils (CSMC), which are in the form of split coils with same dimension, have been tested. The CSMC were successfully charged up to 20 kA and down to zero with different ramp rates. Various pulse waveforms were applied to the CSMC to analyse the AC-loss characteristics of the coils. The measurement method was a gas-flow calorimetry. In this work, two types of waveforms, the DC-biased sinusoidal wave (Idc = 2, 4 kA; ΔIac = 1 kA; ƒ = 0.08 ∼ 0.67 Hz) and a single triangular pulse (Imax = 6 ∼ 10 kA; dI/dt = 0.5 ∼ 2 kA/s), are selected and analysed. From the measured data at the one outlet where helium channel 3 and 4 are merged, the AC loss parameters, related with the hysteresis loss and the coupling loss, are calculated. The B-field strength differs depending on the position within the cooling channels. The spatial field variation and the ramp rate were 0.048∼ 1.9T and 8.1∼ 71 mT/s for the DC-biased sinusoidal waves, while 0.29∼ 4.3 T and 0.024∼ 0.86 T/s for the triangular pulses. The measured AC losses are compared with estimated values and the behavior agrees well. The coupling time constant (nτ) varies with the field strength. In case of the triangular pulses, nτ increases by increasing the field amplitude and the maximum value of nτ is 41 ms with Imax = 10 kA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The KSTAR (Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research) superconducting magnet system which consists of 16 TF coils and 14 PF coils adopts a superconducting CICC (Cable-In-Conduit Conductor) type conductor. The KSTAR magnet system uses two different types of CICCs--Nb3Sn cable with Incoloy 908 conduit and NbTi cable with 316LN stainless-steel conduit A continuous CICC jacketing system is developed for the KSTAR CICC fabrication and the jacketing system uses the tube-mill process. It consists of forming, welding, sizing and squaring procedures. The welding condition of CICCs and the fabrication process is described. The repair of the CICC is also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]