Search

Various DC tests performed recently with full-size 60 kA HTS cable prototypes in the EDIPO test facility demonstrated that proposed design of HTS strand at Swiss Plasma Center (SPC) – stack of HTS tapes twisted and soldered between two copper profiles – is applicable for high-current fusion cables, but improvement of the strand mechanical properties against the cyclic loading is still needed. Based on experimentally obtained correlation between the performances of cable prototypes at different operating conditions, further investigation of cyclic transverse load on the strand performance was performed at 77 K. Aiming to obtain a strand design able to withstand a continuous cyclic load operation of some thousand cycles, influence of the strand geometry and tape's manufacturer has been studied. Cyclic load has been applied up to 1000 cycles for straight and bent samples at the load amplitudes up to 4 MPa. Based on the obtained data, next design of HTS cable prototype will be discussed.

The present study aims to reduce the outer radius of the central solenoid (CS) with respect to its nominal size specified by EUROfusion for a maintained CS magnetic flux. A reduced outer CS radius would allow the reduction of the overall size and cost of the DEMO magnet system. The proposed outline design of the winding pack for the CS1 module is based on layer winding. To achieve the same magnetic flux in a CS coil of significantly reduced outer radius the peak magnetic field at the CS conductors needs to be substantially increased. The use of high-temperature superconductors is therefore envisaged in the highest field sections of the CS coil. It is planned to use react & wind Nb3Sn conductors for intermediate field sections and NbTi at the lowest fields. In order to make a most economic use of the superconductors the proposed winding pack design considers a superconductor grading.

In view of the development of cables for next-generation fusion reactors, research activities are carried out on all HTS materials available from industrial production. Preliminary design of a react and wind cable using Bi-2212 wires is carried out, inspired by the Nb 3 Sn cable for European DEMO. The design and construction of a 60-kA prototype cable made of coated conductors have been carried out. The strands in the cable are composed of a stack of coated conductor tapes (4 mm wide) embedded in a copper profile of 6.3 mm in diameter. Tapes and copper profiles are soldered together in order to obtain a mechanically solid strand and to keep the inter tape resistance at a minimum, so that current can be easily redistributed among the tapes in a strand. The strands are fabricated in pieces 2 m long, but scaling up to industrial production should not present any major problem. A flat cable is manufactured by winding 20 strands around a central copper former; the cable will be inserted in a steel jacket for force flow cooling. The critical current of each strand was measured at liquid nitrogen in self-field just after the manufacturing process (twisted and straight) and after cabling: No reduction of the critical current was observed. Two pieces of cable, each 2 m long, are going to be prepared and assembled to form a sample that can be tested in the EDIPO facility.

Currently, the use of high-temperature superconducting (HTS) cables in the high-field sections of central solenoid (CS) of DEMO is one of the most appealing applications of the HTS cables in fusion magnets. Due to the pulsed operation of such coils minimization of the ac loss is necessary for the CS conductors. For the stacked-tape HTS cable layout proposed at the Swiss Plasma Center (SPC), the main contributions in the total ac loss-hysteresis loss in stacks, intra- and inter-strand coupling losses-have been studied. The electrical network model is used for the coupling losses, based on which the scaling laws for the ac energy loss are proposed. On the basis of the developed numerical tools, the assessment of the ac loss for the next HTS cable prototypes at SPC is also reported. More than 50% reduction of the total ac loss is expected compared with the first TF cable prototypes tested in the European DIPOle (EDIPO).

CRPP hosts two unique conductor test facilities SULTAN (SUpraLeiter TestANlage) and EDIPO (European DIPOle). They allow the test of high current superconductors in high magnetic fields (SULTAN 11 T, EDIPO 12.5 T). In both facilities sample currents up to 100 kA can be supplied by means of a NbTi transformer. Presently the facilities are upgraded for the test of high current high-temperature superconductor (HTS) samples. For HTS conductor testing at temperatures between 20 and 50K, the heat flux between the HTS sample under test and the NbTi transformer needs to be limited to around 10W per conductor leg by means of an HTS adapter connecting them. The second required upgrade is the supply of intermediate temperature helium (20-50 K) to the HTS test conductor. It is mandatory that the helium gas coming from the HTS conductor under test can be returned to the cryoplant as cold gas (T < 20K). To reach this goal a tube-in-tube heat exchanger has been manufactured in which 4.5K helium coming from the cryoplant is in counter flow with the warm gas leaving the HTS test conductor.

The large size of the magnets for DEMO calls for very large operating current in the forced flow conductor. A plain extrapolation from the superconductors in use for ITER is not adequate to fulfill the technical and cost requirements. The proposed DEMO TF magnets is a graded winding using both Nb3Sn and NbTi conductors, with operating current of 82 kA @ 13.6 T peak field. Two Nb3Sn prototypes are being built in 2014 reflecting the two approaches suggested by CRPP (react&wind method) and ENEA (wind&react method). The Nb3Sn strand (overall 200 kg) has been procured at technical specification similar to ITER. Both the Nb3Sn strand and the high RRR, Cr plated copper wire (400 kg) have been delivered. The cabling trials are carried out at TRATOS Cavi using equipment relevant for long length production. The completion of the manufacture of the two 20 m long prototypes is expected in the end of 2014 and their test is planned in 2015 at CRPP. In the scope of a long term technology development, high current HTS conductors are built at CRPP and ENEA. A DEMO-class prototype conductor is developed and assembled at CRPP: it is a flat cable composed of 20 twisted stacks of coated conductor tape soldered into copper shells. The 10 kA conductor developed at ENEA consists of stacks of coated conductor tape inserted into a slotted and twisted Al core, with a central cooling channel. Samples have been manufactured in industrial environment and the scalability of the process to long production lengths has been proven. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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 77 K and magnetic fields up to 12 T 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.

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. I c 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.

In the framework of the DEMOnstration fusion power plant (DEMO) design coordinated by the EUROfusion consortium, a pre-conceptual design of the superconducting magnet system has been developed. For the toroidal field coils (TFCs), three winding pack (WP) options have been proposed; exploring different winding approaches (pancakes vs. layers), and manufacturing techniques (react & wind vs. wind & react Nb3Sn). Thermal-hydraulic and mechanical analyses on the three WPs have produced encouraging results, with some critical issues to be solved in future studies and optimizations. The experimental tests on TF prototype short sample conductors have demonstrated a limited performance degradation with electro-magnetic cycles and significantly lower effective strains than most of the large-size Nb3Sn conductors reported in literature. The toroidal field quench protection circuit has been studied, starting from different topologies and focusing on the most promising one. Two designs are also presented for the central solenoid magnet, with preliminary evaluations on the AC losses during the plasma breakdown. Finally, the design of a TF winding pack based on HTS conductors and the experimental tests on “fusion-relevant” HTS cables are illustrated.

In the EDIPO test facility, superconducting cables with a current carrying capacity up to 100 kA can be tested in a background field of 12.5 T. A NbTi transformer, operated at ???4.5 K, provides the sample current of up to 100 kA. The high-temperature superconductor (HTS) adapter, which is similar to an HTS current lead, connects the HTS sample under test and the NbTi transformer and limits the heat flux between them to less than 20 W at a warm end temperature of 50 K. Helium of 4.5 K and 10 bar supplied by the refrigerator is warmed up to temperatures up to 60 K by means of heaters and a counter flow heat exchanger (HEX). The heat exchanger ensures that the warm helium leaving the HTS sample can be returned as cold gas with less than 20 K to the refrigerator. The commissioning of the HTS adapter and the heat exchanger has been performed together with the test of a 60 kA class HTS cable manufactured at CRPP. The results of the commissioning of the HEX and the HTS adapter are presented.

The design of the European DEMO, i.e., the future fusion tokamak planned after ITER, is being developed under the coordination of the EUROfusion Consortium. This paper reports the design optimization of the toroidal field (TF) winding pack and its corresponding react-and-wind conductor, and a new design study of the central solenoid (CS). The optimization of the TF coil is driven by the results of the mechanical analysis that revealed an unacceptable stress accumulation in some locations of the previous proposal of the TF winding pack. The design study of the CS coil is done with the aim of minimizing the outer radius, while maintaining the magnetic flux defined in the PROCESS system code. The results of the design study, namely the optimized CS coil radius, current density, hoop stress, and the field map, define the initial information that will be needed in future for designing the DEMO CS winding pack and conductor. Contrary to the former similar studies, no upper limit is set for the peak field of the CS, implicitly allowing the use of high-temperature superconductors wherever the current density of Nb3Sn at the operating field is too low.

Previous studies indicated that the use of high-temperature superconductors (HTS) in the highest field allows us achieving the required magnetic flux in the central solenoid (CS) of the European DEMO at a reduced outer diameter, which would enable a reduced overall size and cost of DEMO. The proposed winding pack design of the CS1 module is based on ten layer-wound subcoils using an HTS, react and wind Nb3Sn, and NbTi conductors in the high, medium, and low field sections, respectively. The design utilizes a stainless steel and a superconductor grading leading to different overall current densities in each of the ten subcoils. Both, the hoop stress and the vertical loads are taken into consideration for determination of the required stainless steel cross-section in the winding pack. The stainless steel grading has been found to have an even more pronounced effect on the overall subcoil current densities than the superconductor grading. A preliminary estimation of the space required for the precompression structure is also reported.

During the test of 60 kA high-temperature superconducting cable prototypes in the European DIPOle (EDIPO), the performance of the prototypes in the cycling test was gradually degrading with the increasing number of electromagnetic and warm-up-cool-down cycles. At the end of the test, after about 2000 cycles, the performance drop of the SuperPower and SuperOx conductors reached 10% and 20%, respectively. After the strands were extracted from the SuperOx cable, the critical current of the strand sections that were located in a high-field zone of EDIPO was measured at 77 K /self-field. Reduction of $I_c$ was found not only in the loaded flat side of the cable, but also (and more evident) on the edges of the cable. Several strand sections with the highest degradation of $I_c$ were cut and desoldered. The results of the measurements on the extracted tapes demonstrate highly nonuniform distribution of the retained critical current. Additional investigations have been performed to investigate in details influence of such nonuniformity on the overall $I_c$ performance of the strand. Based on the obtained results, concluding recommendations for the next cable prototypes are discussed.

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.

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, T-cs at 12 T and 50 kA decreased from about 12 K to 11 K (about 10%), corresponding to less than 3% of I-c.