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A cable-in-conduit conductor (CICC) production line was designed and constructed in Institute of Plasma Physics of Chinese Academy of Sciences (IPPCAS) by the end of 2000. It can produce a length of 600 meters and three kinds of sections of 20.8±0.1 × 20.8±0.1, 20.4±0.1 × 20.4±0.1 and 18.6 ± 0.1 × 18.6 ± 0.1 mm2. If the rollers of the shaping machine are changed, it can also produce other sizes of CICCs. So-called inserting-cable technology is adopted in this production line, where the procedures consist of tube pre-treatment (cleaning, pressure and leakage testing, end cutting), conduits butt-welding, six kinds of quality checking (endoscopy, dye penetration, pressure control, leakage testing, ultrasonic inspection and x-ray testing), cable inserting, shaping (compacting & squaring), pre-bending & winding and final checking. Now all the instruments and facilities required for these technologies have been installed and got ready. Some key technologies have been explored and good results obtained. Some short samples were produced and a 600 meters long sample was made out in August, 2001.

This paper reports the working procedure of a 30 m cable-in-conduit-conductor (CICC), which has been first successfully fabricated by a working group of IPP in Jan. 1999. A series of problems along with measures for their solution were put forward at the request of engineering design on the basis of an in-depth understanding of the basic performance of the related techniques for the manufacture of CICC. Through a full-scale trial manufacture of a 30 m conductor including a series of test on performance technology such as tube-tube butted welding, pulling, equaring, prebending and take-up, the trial manufacture of the first home-made CICC conductor has been accomplished, demonstrating that the fabrication of a long-length CICC is entirely possible theorically and practically through our own efforts. Results and problems concerned in this trial fabrication are also presented in the paper.

Publisher Summary This chapter describes the design consideration, manufacture technology, and some test results of 20kA HTSCL. According to investigation the heat load of HTS current leads (HTSCL) at 4.5K can reduce to 0.1–0.18W/kA of the nominal leads. Using HTSCL for EAST tokamak can reduce refrigeration power of 900 W/4.5K at least and save operating cost greatly. Two 20kA current leads are made of different materials. Module 1 consists of melt cast processed Bi-2212 tube and two layers of Bi-2223/Ag-Au alloy tapes as the shunt and also to enhance current-carrying capacity. The critical current of the Bi-2212 tube alone is 9.052 kA at 77 K. The preliminary test results show that module 2 made of CryoBlock has better performance on the higher critical current and lower contact resistance. Correct solder technique and intervals between the stacks as small as possible are most important for HTSCL to reach a high performance without degradation of Bi-2223/AgAu tapes.