Superconducting magnet development in Japan

The present state of R & D works on the superconducting magnet and its applications in Japan are presented. On electrical rotating machines, 30 MVA superconducting synchronous rotary condenser (Mitsubishi and Fuji) and 50 MVA generator are under construction. Two ways of ship propulsion by superconducting magnets are developing. A superconducting magnetically levitated and linear motor propelled train "MAGLEV" has developed by the Japan National Railways (JNR). A large scale test track of 7 Km was constructed in Kyushu and the test vehicle reached its target speed of 517 Km/hr. The first manned test running was made by three-vehicles train on new U-shaped guideway. The superconducting magnet development for fusion is the most active field in Japan. The Cluster Test program has beer demonstrated on a 10 T Nb3Sn coil and the first coil of Large Coil Task in IEA collaboration has been constructed and the domestic test was completed in JAERI. These works are for the development of toroidal coils of the next generation tokamak machine. R & D works on superconducting ohmic heating coil are in progress in JAERI and ETL. The latter group has constructed 3.8 MJ pulsed coil. A high ramp rate of changing field in pulsed magnet, 200 T/s, has been tested successfully, for burning tokamak device project in IPP, by joint work of Nihon University, ETL, Mitsubishi and IPP. High Energy Physics Laboratory (KEK) are conducting active works. The superconducting μ meson channel and π meson channel have been constructed and are operating successfully. KEK has also a project of big accelerator named "TRISTAN", which is similar to ISABELLE project of BNL. Superconducting synchrotron magnets are developed for this project. The development of superconducting three thin wall solenoid has been started. One of them, CDF, is progressing under USA-Japan collaboration.     

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.     

New directions in fusion magnet development

As part of the ERDA Division of Magnetic Fusion Energy effort to achieve fusion power by the end of the century, superconducting magnet programs were established at several of the national laboratories with the support of numerous industries. Recently, these program goals have been reviewed and modified to reflect new directions in fusion research. The development of superconducting toroidal field coils has been assigned first priority for the Experimental Power Reactor. This effort, centered at ORNL, will have the extensive support of industry, so that large construction capability can be encouraged. Ohmic heating coils for tokamaks promise to be an even more difficult task, and an expanded effort will be initiated as funds become available. Magnets for mirror confinement systems should have the highest fields practical. Accordingly, LLL has been funded to develop multifilamentary niobium-tin for future might experiments. If successful, the material might complement the recent trend toward higher field tokamaks as well. Energy Storage development at LASL is concentrating on inductive storage for 1 msec discharge and a superconducting homopolar generator for 30 msec to 1 sec discharge times. The stainless steel structure is a major cost element of any magnet system. However, recent calculations have shown that a magnetic coil form affects the toroidal field ripple in the EPR by only a few parts in a thousand. Thus, an opportunity exists to characterize and develop less expensive alloys for low temperature magnet structures.     

Superconducting magnet design for open gradient magnetic separation

Well designed superconducting magnets seem to be especially promising for use as open gradient magnetic separators. Specific magnetic force densities in the region of 100 MN m⁻³, which are appropriate for the industrial treatment of paramagnetic matter, may result. The magnets can be optimized by choosing a proper winding geometry as well as by using a beneficial superconductor layout. These two optimization procedures may be carried out almost independently from each other by means of dimensionless parameter functions. The geometric design has to be planned with regard to the required force field type, e.g. katadynamic or anadynamic force field, and with regard to an efficient use of the superconducting material. The superconductor design has to be planned with regard to achieving a high magnetic force density, which is correlated with a high Lorentz-force density within the winding. High overall current densities are required. The optimum flux densities are in the region of 5 T with NbTi.     

Superconducting magnets for toroidal fusion reactors

Fusion reactors will soon be employing superconducting magnets to confine plasma in which deuterium and tritium (D-T) are fused to produce usable energy. At present there is one small confinement experiment with superconducting toroidal field (TF) coils: Tokamak 7 (T-7), in the USSR, which operates at 4 T. By 1983, six different 2.5 × 3.5-m D-shaped coils from six manufacturers in four countries will be assembled in a toroidal array in the Large Coil Test Facility (LCTF) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for testing at fields up to 8 T. Soon afterwards ELMO Bumpy Torus (EBT-P) will begin operation at Oak Ridge with superconducting TF coils. At the same time there will be tokamaks with superconducting TF coils 2 to 3 m in diameter in the USSR and France. Toroidal field strength in these machines will range from 6-9 T. NbTi and Nb3Sn, bath cooling and forced flow, cryostable and metastable - various designs are being tried in this period when this new application of superconductivity is growing and maturing.     

Superconducting bulk magnet for maglev vehicle: Stable levitation performance above permanent magnet guideway

High-temperature superconducting (HTS) maglev vehicle is well known as one of the most potential applications of bulk high-temperature superconductors (HTSCs) in transported levitation system. Many efforts have promoted the practice of the HTS maglev vehicle in people's life by enhancing the load capability and stability. Besides improving the material performance of bulk HTSC and optimizing permanent magnet guideway (PMG), magnetization method of bulk HTSC is also very effective for more stable levitation. Up to now, applied onboard bulk HTSCs are directly magnetized by field cooling above the PMG for the present HTS maglev test vehicles or prototypes in China, Germany, Russia, Brazil, and Japan. By the direct-field-cooling-magnetization (DFCM) over PMG, maglev performances of the bulk HTSCs are mainly depended on the PMG's magnetic field. However, introducing HTS bulk magnet into the HTS maglev system breaks this dependence, which is magnetized by other non-PMG magnetic field. The feasibility of this HTS bulk magnet for maglev vehicle is investigated in the paper. The HTS bulk magnet is field-cooling magnetized by a Field Control Electromagnets Workbench (FCEW), which produces a constant magnetic field up to 1 T. The levitation and guidance forces of the HTS bulk magnet over PMG with different trapped flux at 15 mm working height (WH) were measured and compared with that by DFCM in the same applied PMG magnetic field at optimal field-cooling height (FCH) 30 mm, WH 15 mm. It is found that HTS bulk magnet can also realize a stable levitation above PMG. The trapped flux of HTS bulk magnet is easily controllable by the charging current of FCEW, which implies the maglev performances of HTS bulk magnet above PMG will be adjustable according to the practical requirement. The more trapped flux HTS bulk magnet will lead to bigger guidance force and smaller repulsion levitation force above PMG. In the case of saturated trapped flux for experimental HTS bulk magnet, it is not effective to improve its maglev performances by increasing of charging magnetic field, when the guidance force at WH 15 mm is 5.7 times larger than that by DFCM of FCH 30 mm. So introducing HTS bulk magnet into the present maglev system is feasible and more controllable to realize stable levitation above applied PMG, which is an important alternative for the present HTS maglev vehicle.     

Superconducting magnets in fusion research

For several years there has been a concerted effort worldwide towards developing magnets for fusion. The progress made has been impressive and the technology now seems forthcoming, at an appropriately high level, to build further large-scale fusion devices with superconducting magnets. This Paper attempts to summarize the goals and the present major areas of research.     

Electromagnetic behavior of lap-joints for fusion magnet system

The joint between superconducting Cable-In-Conduit-Conductors (CICC) is a key technology in a magnetic confinement fusion apparatus. Several hundreds of joints are involved in one apparatus generally. DC resistance of the lap-joint is typically designed less than several n-ohms and the allowable joule loss is several watts. AC loss due to external magnetic field is also limited to less than several watts. Reduction of the AC loss and low joint resistance are required simultaneously and those are conflicting trade-off.The lap-joint had been examined under both self-field and external-transverse-field experimentally. In this study, we established a numerical model for the joint and analyzed for electromagnetic behavior of it numerically. In the simulation, modeling of contact resistances between twisted strands is important. Circuit constants, e.g., conductance between strands, were determined to reproduce the experimental results; those are the circuit constants and the DC joint resistance. The relation between the joint resistance and the AC loss was discussed. Constitution of the joint does not only influence on the joint resistance and the AC loss but also current distribution in the cable. Non-uniform current distribution among the strands is reported to result in the degradation of the stability. We successfully simulated mentioned phenomena and found our numerical model was useful in joint design to find a good compromise.     

Integral formulation for large-scale eddy current computation of a Superconducting magnet system

The eddy currents' distribution is investigated during a transient process in a superconducting magnet system. We have applied a numerical method based on an integral approach. In such a method, only the coils of the magnet system without the air embedding are discretized. Such integral approach leads to the full matrices and consequentially to large computational requirements. There are techniques, which generate less dense matrices by introducing groups of long-range interactions. We have applied a similar technique based on equivalent currents in the coils.     

Superconducting toroidal combined-function magnet for a compact ion beam cancer therapy gantry

A superconducting, combined-function, 5 T, 90°, toroidal magnet with a large bore is described in this paper. This magnet is designed to be the last and most difficult part of a compact superconducting magnet-based carbon gantry optics for ion beam cancer therapy. The relatively small size of this toroidal magnet allows for a gantry the size of which is smaller or at least comparable to that of a proton gantry. The gantry design places the toroidal magnet between the scanning magnets and the patient, that is the scanning magnets are placed midway through the gantry. By optimizing the coil winding configuration of this magnet, near point-to-parallel optics is achieved between the scanning magnets and the patient; while at the same time there is only a small distortion of the beam-shape when scanning. We show that the origin of the beam-shape distortion is the strong sextupole components, whose effects are greatly pronounced when the beam is widely steered in the magnet. A method to correct such an undesirable effect is suggested and demonstrated by a numerical particle tracking through the calculated three-dimensional magnetic field.     

DEALS: a demountable superconducting magnet system for fusion reactors

A new type of superconducting magnet system (DEALS) for large fusion reactors is described. Instead of winding large planar or multi-axis coils, as has been previously proposed in fusion reactor designs, the demountable superconducting coils would be made by joining together several prefabricated conductor sections. Conductor types, fabrication processes, and joining schemes are described. The magnet sections would be made at a central factory and shipped to the reactor site for assembly.The magnetic forces on the conductors would be transmitted to an external room temperature support structure via low thermal conductivity bearing blocks. This reduces conductor tensile stresses to very low levels. Differential and mechanical thermal movements between the magnet coil and the external support structure would be accommodated by the use of moveable joints between magnet sections. These pressure type contact joints carry current during magnet operation, and do not carry tensile loads.Finite element analyses on the magnet and its support structure are presented together with analyses of magnet cooling requirements. Results of experiments on small movable pressure type joints at liquid helium temperatures are described.These indicate that adequately low joint losses should be achievable in large magnet systems. Current carrying capcity is not affected by relative motion, and friction coefficients are reaonable. Based on these results and the analyses, the DEALS concept appears feasible for fusion magnet systems.     

Design,development and fabrication of indigenous 30 kA NbTi CICC for fusion relevant superconducting magnet

The fusion relevant superconducting magnet is under development in India using a cable-in-conduit-conductor (CICC) with operating current of 30 kA at 5.5 T and 4.5 K. The 30 kA NbTi based CICC is designed on the basis of desired critical design parameters as well as mechanical fabrication considerations. The 30 kA CICC has been designed having square cross-section (30 mm × 30 mm) consisting NbTi as superconducting cable, SS316LN as jacket material and SS304 foil as wrapping around the cabled strands. The design configuration of 30 kA NbTi CICC has been discussed in this paper. The NbTi base high current carrying strands have been fabricated indigenously using direct extrusion and cold drawing process. The 100 m long NbTi–Cu strands twisting, insertion of cabled strands into a circular conduit has been developed with pull through technology. The welding process qualification and effects of cold work on jacket material at room temperature have been elaborated in this paper. The manufacturing parameters and quality procedures for development of CICC have been successfully established and demonstrated with fabrication of 100 m NbTi based CICC without any technical difficulties.     

Momentum-preserved node for fusion magnet cryogenic network analysis and its implications

Cryogen supply is one of decisive factors for the analysis of fusion magnet. In order to analyze cryogenic networks, numerical node joining each component together is required. In SUPERMAGNET code, such joint called as ‘volume’ node, behaves like a small reservoir, cryogen completely loses its momentum. However, when there is severe AC loss, especially at inlet, transient massive backward flow can occur and the assumption on total momentum loss is a bit dubious. Here, we discuss plausible momentum-preserved node concepts suitable for thermo-hydraulic analysis of fusion magnet. Based on requirements of cryogenic network solver, two types of node, namely ‘plenum’ and ‘manifold’ are proposed and compared. Plenum node is an extension of volume node including velocity and manifold is a quasi-0D node calculating velocity similar to finite volume method (FVM). Interestingly, the ‘volume’ node does not behave like a reservoir. Instead, it is more like a frictionless pass-through. Therefore, we argue that we need to introduce additional pressure drop at both inlets and outlets, somewhat like bending loss. Furthermore, if there is a severe backflow at inlet then it is also possible heat generated by AC loss can detour to another path, to other magnet. A case study has been carried out and it is shown that AC loss estimation error can be quite substantial as high as over 10%.     

Safety and reliability in superconducting fusion magnet systems

Superconducting toroidal field coils for future commercial Tokamak reactors must operate safely and reliably for periods of up to 30 years or more with minimal interruption for maintenance. This paper represents an initial attempt to consider safety and reliability issues for superconducting fusion magnets. Goals and approaches for safety and reliability are characterized. Possible accident initiators are identified, and the effect of mechanical, thermal, and electrical factors are examined, by using some early Tokamak reactor concepts as illustrations. Principal factors in magnet instrumentation and control are identified, and the role of engineered-safety features are discussed.     

Dipole magnet development in Japan

Recent development of superconducting accelerator dipole magnets in Japan is described. A series of NbTi/Cu dipoles in the region of 5 to 10 T is being developed at KEK. The maximum field will depend on the maximum proton energy of the TRISTAN ring from 300 to 600 GeV. On the other hand, development of a special Nb3Sn/Cu dipole magnet in the region of 10 T has been started for the future multi-TeV pp andbar{p}pcolliding beam accelerator.     

Superconducting Electronics at mK Temperatures

The interest in superconducting electronics working at millikelvin temperatures has increased during the past few years, and several novel devices and amplifiers utilizing mesoscopic Josephson junctions have been developed. We review the present status of a few of these devices, foremost the inductively-read superconducting Cooper pair transistor and the Bloch oscillating transistor. As a comparison, we review the status of dc SQUID devices which provide the traditional amplifier choice when approaching the standard quantum limit in ultra-sensitive measurements. In addition, we discuss a new type of current pump, the Sluice, in which modulation of Josephson energy is employed to produce large currents at high accuracy. These new developments continue the flourishing “Otaniemi tradition” in ultra-low-temperature physics and SQUID magnetometry for which Academician Olli V. Lounasmaa acted as the primus motor over three decades.     

Bus design, development and test for the Superconducting SuperCollider

The power bus to be used in the Superconducting Super Collider magnets must operate in supercritical helium at 4.35 K and about 4 atm. The bus is nominally 17 m in length, must accommodate large differential thermal contractions, and must be amenable to large-quantity, cost-effective production, installation, and joining to adjacent magnets. It must be stable with respect to the largest credible disturbance and be protected in the event of a propagating normal region. Stability and protection requirements are satisfied in the design presented with Super Collider cable for the conductor located between, and soldered to, two copper braids. Variations in the energy margin and in the protection characteristics of the bus as a function of the braid dimensions and channel cooling characteristics are discussed. A stability and quench test program for the bus is underway. Results to date are described, and the status of design and production of full length bus sections is given     

Neutron spectra and angular distributions of concrete-moderated neutron calibration fields at JAERI

The Facility of Radiation Standards of Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute has been equipped with concrete-moderated neutron calibration fields as simulated workplace neutron fields. The fields use an 241Am-Be neutron source placed in the narrow space surrounded by concrete bricks, walls and floor. The neutron spectra and the neutron fluence rates of the fields were measured with the Bonner multi-sphere spectrometer system (BMS), spherical recoil-proton proportional counters, and a liquid scintillation counter (NE-213). The results were compared with each other. The reference values of H*(10) were determined from the results of BMS. The angular distributions of neutron fluence were calculated using MCNP-4B2 to obtain the reference values of Hp(10). The calculated results show that the scattered neutrons have a wide range of incident angles. The reference Hp(10) values considered the angular distribution were found to be 10-18% smaller than those without consideration.