Design of an industrially feasible twisted-stack HTS cable-in-conduit conductor for fusion application

Taking advantage of the large experience of the ENEA Superconducting Laboratory in the manufacture and characterization of large scale superconducting systems, a project was launched, aimed at using High Temperature Superconductor (HTS) 2G wires for the manufacture of a cable-in-conduit conductor (CICC). In particular, the main aim was the definition of a conductor design fully compatible with existing cabling technologies, to be promptly transferred to an industrial scale production. The considered layout is based on 150 HTS tapes, arranged as five layered structures of twisted tapes wound on a helically slotted core with external round jacket. All manufacturing steps (slotted core production, tape stacking and insertion into the ducts, external wrapping and jacketing) are fulfilled by using equipments and technologies available at TRATOS Cavi S.p.A. These CICCs are intended for operation using forced flow of Helium. A 2D local thermal model has been developed for the optimization of the cooling configuration. This conductor is designed to target 20 kA at 4.2 K and 15 T (or, alternatively, higher temperature, in self-field and LN2 cooling) corresponding to a Je of about 55 A/mm2. The production of a short dummy sample revealed that the exploited industrial production process is very promising for the development of HTS CICC. © 2013 IEEE.