Theoretical and experimental investigation of magnetic field related helium leak in helium vessel of a large superconducting magnet

The helium vessel of the superconducting cyclotron (SCC) at the Variable Energy Cyclotron centre (VECC), Kolkata shows a gradual loss of insulation vacuum from 10⁻⁷ mbar to 10⁻⁴ mbar with increasing coil current in the magnet. The insulation vacuum restores back to its initial value with the withdrawal of current. The origin of such behavior has been thought to be related to the electromagnetic stress in the magnet. The electromagnetic stress distribution in the median plane of the helium vessel was studied to figure out the possible location of the helium leak. The stress field from the possible location was transferred to a simplified 2D model with different leak geometries to study the changes in conductance with coil current. The leak rate calculated from the changes in the leak geometry was compared with the leak rate calculated from the experimental insulation vacuum degradation behavior to estimate the initial leak shape and size.     

Cryogenic leak test procedure for a large superconducting cyclotron helium vessel

A procedure for testing the vacuum integrity of very large stainless steel weldments used at cryogenic temperatures has been developed at Michigan State University. This development, which uses large quantities of liquid nitrogen, is a modification of a technique commonly applied to small devices and involves cooling the cryostat's liquid helium vessel (bobbin) to liquid nitrogen temperature, and then proceeding immediately with leak testing. This method was applied to the K800 superconducting magnet helium vessel, which seemed leak tight at room temperature, but was found to have an easily detectable helium leak when cooled. After repairing the leak, retesting revealed no leaks, where upon the K800 cryostat construction was completed; i.e. the bobbin was wrapped with superinsulation, a liquid nitrogen radiation shield was added, and the assembly was inserted into the vacuum jacket. The final leak test occurred when the cryostat was cooled to liquid helium temperature and was found to be helium leak tight.     

35 kJ高温超导磁储能(SMES)的热输运实验研究

研制了中国首台高温超导磁储能直接冷却系统,该系统不使用低温液体(液氦、液氮).在10-3Pa的真空度下,高温超导磁体线圈由1台单级GM制冷机从室温293 K冷却到19 K,Bi2223电流引线由另一台制冷机冷却到77 K以下.整个系统在通140 A直流电流的时候产生了4.5 T的磁场.系统连续运行480 h(20 d),磁体和低温系统各参数动态特性良好.实验研究表明,控制系统的漏热,优化磁体内部导冷结构,有效减少热传导部件的接触界面热阻是制冷机直接冷却高温超导磁体的关键技术.     

EAST托卡马克装置冷屏的真空要求与受热分析

冷屏是EAST超导托卡马克核聚变实验装置的重要部件之一。对冷屏系统的氦泄漏漏率做了计算,介绍了其检漏实践;采取有限元法对内冷屏的受热状况进行了计算分析,以验证内冷屏氦冷却管道设计方案的可靠性。     

环形正负电子对撞机大型探测器超导磁体虹吸实验初步研究

对环形正负电子对撞机大型探测器超导磁体拟采用的低温虹吸实验进行了研究,通过液氮虹吸实验发现了倾斜角度对虹吸换热效果的影响。热虹吸管在15°时换热效果最佳(最大换热温差在4 K内),倾角增大,热虹吸管冷热端温差逐渐增大。对液氦虹吸实验装置进行设计和搭建,并进行了初步探索,研究发现蒸发侧热负荷为0.5 W时,管路换热温差为1.2 K,且装置本体漏热为0.5 W。     

Industrialisation of the insulation vacuum barrier for the large hadron collider (LHC) magnet cryostats

The insulation vacuum (<10⁻⁴ Pa) of the large hadron collider magnet cryostats, thermally protecting the superconducting magnets which operate at 1.9 K in superfluid helium, is divided in to 214 m long segments separated by means of insulation vacuum barriers.The insulation vacuum barrier is a leak-tight stainless steel welded structure, composed of two concentric corrugated cylinders and one internal bellows linked together by a 6 mm thick central plate. As the vacuum barrier mechanically links the cryostat vacuum vessel operating at ambient temperature and the 1.9 K superconducting magnets, it is designed to have minimum heat conductivity. Conduction heat in-leak is intercepted at 65 K by a high-purity copper ring brazed onto the stainless steel central plate and thermally linked to a cryogenic line by a copper-aluminium soldering. The thermal performance has been experimentally validated by cryogenic testing.This paper presents the results obtained after industrialisation, manufacture and testing of prototypes and series units. Qualification of leak-tight welds in thin-sheet stainless steel (thickness 0.15-1.3 mm) has been carried out. Ultrasonic testing is performed on all brazing and soldering. Helium leak testing is performed, using dedicated tooling, to ensure a leak-tightness to a rate better than 10⁻⁹ Pa m³ s⁻¹.     

EAST超导托卡马克热负荷波动对低温系统液氦槽的影响

EAST超导托卡马克的纵场和极向场磁体均采用NbTi超导材料,由3.8 K超临界氦冷却.在托卡马克实验运行时,极向场的放电脉冲和等离子体破裂产生的交流损耗带来的热负荷增加,经过超临界氦流带到低温系统控制阀箱内的液氦槽和过冷槽,造成槽内的液氦蒸发量增加.蒸发的氦回到制冷机中,从而影响制冷机的稳定运行.通过对实际超临界管道和液氦槽、过冷槽中换热过程建立换热模型,进行热工分析,分析液氦槽和过冷槽中的压力等参数的变化,指导低温系统的设计.     

Cryogenic system of the MAX-Wiggler

A novel insertion device for electron storage rings called the MAX-Wiggler has been constructed and commissioned at MAX-lab. The MAX-Wiggler is a cold bore superconducting wiggler magnet with 47 3.5 T poles and a period length of 61 mm aimed for the production of X-rays at the 1.5 GeV electron storage ring MAX-II at MAX-lab. This note describes the cryogenic system of the MAX-Wiggler, theoretical predictions of the heat loads to the cryostat, and measured heat loads at operation. The cryostat is a helium cooled bath type cryostat. The design criterion for the cryostat was to have a liquid He boil-off less than 3 l/h, which corresponds to a heat load of 2.1 W. The theoretical calculations predicted a heat load of 0.87 W to the liquid He bath. Of the 0.87 W predicted heat load, 0.17 W was predicted to be induced by the stored beam in MAX-II, 0.12 W from synchrotron radiation and 0.05 W from image currents. The measured heat load to the liquid He bath is larger than predicted from the theoretical calculations and at nominal working conditions it is 1.7 W. The measured contribution to the total heat load from the stored beam of 200 mA in MAX-II is 0.86 W, 0.59 W from image currents and 0.26 W from synchrotron radiation. The measured contribution from the image current is 0.59 W, about 10 times larger than expected from the theoretical calculations, which is assumed to depend on that the Cu plating of the inner surfaces of the cold bore has a lower electrical conductivity than foreseen. The higher than expected heat load from synchrotron radiation is assumed to come from a positioning error of the upstream absorber for synchrotron radiation. There is no observable increase of the heat load with the wiggler at full field. Even though the heat loads are higher than expected, the design criterion of obtaining a cryostat with a liquid He boil-off inferior to 3 l/h with 200 mA of stored current in MAX-II has been met.     

The cryogenic system for ITER CC superconducting conductor test facility

This paper describes the cryogenic system of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) Correction Coils (CC) test facility, which consists of a 500 W/4.5 K helium refrigerator, a 50 kA superconducting transformer cryostat (STC) and a background field magnet cryostat (BFMC). The 500 W/4.5 K helium refrigerator synchronously produces both the liquid helium (LHe) and supercritical helium (SHe). The background field magnet and the primary coil of the superconducting transformer (PCST) are cooled down by immersing into 4.2 K LHe. The secondary Cable-In-Conduit Conductor (CICC) coil of the superconducting transformer (SCST), superconducting joints and the testing sample of ITER CC are cooled down by forced-flow supercritical helium. During the commissioning experiment, all the superconducting coils were successfully translated into superconducting state. The background field magnet was fully cooled by immersing it into 4.2 K LHe and generated a maximal background magnetic field of 6.96 T; the temperature of transformer coils and current leads was reduced to 4.3 K; the inlet temperature of SHe loop was 5.6 K, which can meet the cooling requirements of CIC-Conductor and joint boxes. It is noted that a novel heat cut-off device for High Temperature Superconducting (HTS) binary current leads was introduced to reduce the heat losses of transformer cryostat.     

Cold leak tests of LHC beam screens

In order to guide the high energy proton beams inside its two 27 km long vacuum rings, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, Geneva, makes use of superconducting technology to create the required magnetic fields. More than 4000 beam screens, cooled at 7-20 K, are inserted inside the 1.9 K beam vacuum tubes to intercept beam-induced heat loads and to provide dynamic vacuum stability. As extremely high helium leak tightness is required, all beam screens have been leak tested under cold conditions in a dedicated test stand prior to their installation. After describing the beam screen design and its functions, this report focuses on the cold leak test sequence and discusses the results.     

Superferric quadrupoles for FAIR Super FRS energy buncher

The quadrupole magnets for FAIR Super FRS energy buncher have large usable aperture, high magnetic pole-tip field and high gradient field quality. The iron-dominated magnets with superconducting coils have to be used in this application. The NbTi coil, laminated iron, and support structure of about 22 tons is immersed in liquid helium. The 4.5 K helium chamber is completely covered with a thermal shield cooled by helium at 50–80 K on its outer and inner surface. The helium chamber and thermal shield is enclosed in a vacuum shell.The paper presents design details of the long quadrupole. Coupled thermal, magnetic and structural analysis was carried out to design the magnet iron, magnet coil, helium vessel and support links and ensure the required gradient field quality is achieved. The paper also presents the design of support links and outer vacuum chamber.     

基于液氮冷源超导磁体氦气循环预冷系统设计

为了提高超导磁体300-80 K预冷过程中的降温效率和安全性,开发了一种新的预冷方法.设计了一台以液氮为冷源、氦气为循环介质的可控温预冷装置,对其内部结构进行了优化设计,包括低温风机、板式换热器、气动调节阀、翅片换热器等主要组成部分,整个装置与磁体构成一个闭合循环系统.在预冷装置的作用下,该超导磁体从300 K到80 ...     

Development of a Superconducting Magnet System with Zero Liquid Helium Boil-off

A homogeneous magnetic field superconducting magnet with a cold bore of 250 mm and a central field of 4.3 T has been designed, manufactured, and tested with zero liquid helium boil-off. As a result of magnetic field homogeneity considerations, the magnet is composed of three coaxial coils: one main coil and two compensation coils. All coils are connected in series and can be charged with a single power supply. The magnetic field homogeneity is about ±3.0 % from ?200 mm to 200 mm in axial direction with 86 mm in diameter. The magnet can be operated in persistent mode with a superconducting switch. A two-stage GM cryocooler with a capacity of 1.5 W at 4.2 K was used to cool the superconducting magnet. The cryocooler prevents the liquid helium from boiling off and leads to zero helium loss during static operation. The magnet can be operated in liquid helium circumstance by cooling the gas helium with the cryocooler without additional supply of liquid helium. Under this condition, the magnet is successfully operated up to 4 T without quench. The magnet system can be generating 0.25 L/h liquid helium with the cryocooler by supplying the gas helium without loading the magnet. In this paper, the magnet design, manufacture, mechanical behavior analysis, and the performance test results of the magnet are presented.     

Refrigerator-recirculator systems for large forced-cooled superconducting magnets

Forced-cooled superconductors are viewed as a promising alternative in the development of high field superconducting magnets for future fusion devices. The high current density cable superconductor is protected against thermal instabilities by forcing (single phase) supercritical helium through the cable.The cryogenic cooling system for a forced-cooled superconducting magnet works as a refrigerator and a reciculator at the same time. The paper discusses the conceptual design of the cooling systems for forced-cooled superconducting magnets with the overall objective of reducing the refrigeration costs. The general conclusion of this article is that economic cooling systems must employ efficient cold pump recirculators in which the large flow demanded by the forced-cooled superconducting magnet is confined to the cold end of the refrigerating column. If the liquid helium pump efficiency is less than 40%, systems employing elevated temperature compressors are more economic.     

Superconducting magnet for K-500 cyclotron at VECC, Kolkata

K-500 superconducting cyclotron is in the advanced stage of commissioning at VECC, Kolkata. Superconducting magnet is one of the major and critical component of the cyclotron. It has been successfully fabricated, installed, cooled down to 4.2 K by interfacing with LHe plant and energized to its rated current on 30th April, 2005 producing magnetic field of 4.8 T at median plane of cyclotron. The superconducting magnet (stored energy of 22MJ) consists of two coils (α and β), which were wound on a sophisticated coil winding machine set-up at VECC. The superconducting cable used for winding the coils is multi filamentary composite superconducting wire (1.29 mm diameter) having 500 filaments of 40 μm diameter Nb-Ti in copper matrix which is embedded in OFHC grade copper channel (2.794 mm × 4.978 mm) for cryogenic stability. The basic structure of coil consists of layer type helical winding on a SS bobbin of 1475 mm ID × 1930 mm OD × 1170 mm height. The bobbin was afterwards closed by SS sheet to form the LHe chamber. The total weight of the coil with bobbin was about 6 tonne and the total length of the superconducting cable wound was about 35 km. Winding was done at very high tension (2000 PSI) and close tolerance to restrict the movement of conductor and coil during energization. After coil winding, all four coils (two each on upper and lower half of median plane of cyclotron) were banded by aluminium strip (2.7 mm × 5 mm) at higher tension (20,000 PSI) to give more compressive force after cool down to 4.2 K for restricting the movement of coil while energizing and thereby eliminating the chances of quench during ramping of current.After completion of coil winding by October, 2003, cryostat assembly was taken up in house. The assembly of cryostat (13 tonne) with support links (9 Nos.) refrigeration port, instrumentation port, helium vapour cooled current loads, etc. was completed by June, 2004. Meanwhile assembly of magnet frame was taken up and the cryostat was positioned in the magnet frame with proper alignment by August, 2004. After installation of cryostat on magnet, the cryostat was connected to the helium refrigerator/liquefier, having refrigeration capacity of 200 W and 100 l/h in liquefier mode with LN2 pre-cooling. The cryogenic delivery system supplying the liquid helium and liquid nitrogen to the superconducting magnet was successfully commissioned in November, 2004. The cool down of the cryostat to 10 K took around 8 days following which the LHe was filled in the cryostat (300 l) on 15th January, 2005. Subsequently the superconducting coils (α and β) were energized by two DC current regulated power supplies (20 V, 1000 A, 10 ppm stability) with slow and fast dump resistors connected externally across the superconducting coils for protection of coils at the time of power failure and quench.The paper describes the intricacies involved in coil winding, winding set-up, assembly of cryostat, cooling down the superconducting coils, filling by LHe and energization to rated current. The paper also highlights the operating experience of superconducting magnet and related test results.     

A “permanent” high-temperature superconducting magnet operated in thermal communication with a mass of solid nitrogen

A new design for a portable “permanent” superconducting magnet system is explored. The design involves a persistent-mode high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnet that is cooled by a solid heat capacitor. The system is an alternative to permanent low-temperature superconducting (LTS) magnet systems where the magnet is cooled by a bath of liquid helium.An apparatus was constructed to demonstrate stable operation of a permanent magnet wound with Bi2223/Ag conductor while in thermal communication with a mass of solid nitrogen. The apparatus includes a room-temperature bore and can function while it stands alone, detached from its cooling source, power supply, and vacuum pump. The magnet is operated in the 20–40 K temperature range. This apparatus is the first to demonstrate the operation of a superconducting magnet with a permissible temperature variation exceeding a few degrees kelvin. Models are developed to predict the experimental system's warming trend and magnetic field decay. The models are validated with a good agreement between simulations based on these models and experimental results. The results indicate that present HTS conductor critical current and index are not yet sufficient to provide field strengths and field decay time constants that are required for typical persistent-mode applications.     

Soviet research in cryogenic technology and applied superconductivity

This paper reviews the achievements of forty years of Soviet research in cryogenic technology and applied superconductivity, including air fractionation, helium liquefaction, refrigeration, superconducting magnet systems, composite conductors, dipole magnets, saddle winding magnets, electrical insulation properties, power transmission, and liquid helium storage and transmission.     

不同种类破空气体对高真空多层绝热低温容器真空丧失后传热的影响

通过实验,分别利用氮气、空气、氧气和氦气作为破空气体,对高真空多层绝热低温容器在真空完全丧失后的漏热进行了研究。结果表明,多层绝热结构对于绝热真空完全丧失后的低温容器能够起到一定的保护作用,初始和最终漏热和渗入到绝热真空夹层中气体的性质密切相关。     

40-T混合磁体外超导线圈迫流氦流动摩擦系数分析

40-T混合磁体外超导磁体使用4.5 K超临界氦进行迫流冷却。迫流氦在管内电缆导体(CICC)内的流动过程受到摩擦阻力的影响会造成一定的压降和热量产生,同时由外界带来的热量也会由迫流氦带走来让磁体保持在超导温区。使用了超导磁体实际运行过程中的实验数据计算不同导体结构下雷诺数与摩擦系数的变化关系,利用Katheder经验公式对实验的摩擦系数进行了重新拟合,给出了适用于该导体摩擦系数的经验公式。