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.     

Mutual Inductance and Force Calculations Between Coaxial Bitter Coils and Superconducting Coils with Rectangular Cross Section

Mutual inductance and force calculations between coaxial Bitter coils and superconducting coils with rectangular cross section in a hybrid magnet system using derived semi-analytical expressions based on two integrations were performed. The mutual inductance and force calculations are based on the assumption of the uniform current density distribution in superconducting coils. The current density distribution of a Bitter coil in radial direction, however, is inversely proportional to the radius of the Bitter coil. The influence of the current density redistribution caused by a cooling hole and an inhomogeneous temperature distribution of Bitter coil of a water-cooled magnet was not considered. The obtained expressions can be implemented by Simpson’s integration with FORTRAN programming. We confirm the validity of mutual inductance calculation by comparing it with a filament method, and give the accuracy of two methods. The mutual inductance values computed by two methods are in excellent agreement. The derived semi-analytical expressions of mutual inductance allow a low computational time compared with filament method to a specific accuracy. The force is derived by multiplying the currents of the two coils by their mutual inductance gradient.     

Hybrid finite difference/finite element solution method development for non-linear superconducting magnet and electrical circuit breakdown transient analysis

The problem of non-linear superconducting magnet and electrical protection circuit system transients is formulated. To enable studying the effects of coil normalization transients, coil distortion (due to imbalanced magnetic forces), internal coil arcs and shorts, and other normal and off-normal circuit element responses, the following capabilities are included: temporal, voltage and current-dependent voltage sources, current sources, resistors, capacitors and inductors. The concept of self-mutual inductance, and the form of the associated inductance matrix, is discussed for internally shorted coils. This is a Kirchhoff's voltage loop law and Kirchhoff's current node law formulation. The non-linear integrodifferential equation set is solved via a unique hybrid finite difference/integral finite element technique.     

ITER CC导体接头测试装置设计与研制

根据国际热核实验反应堆(ITER)校正场线圈(CC)导体接头低温电阻的测试要求,设计并研制了一套用于超导导体接头的低温测试装置。该装置主要包括10 kA超导变压器、低温测试杜瓦、磁体失超保护系统和数据采集系统等。超导变压器的初级线圈及次级线圈采用LHe浸泡的方式进行冷却。超导变压器初级线圈电流引线采用常规铜电流引线,为增加铜的传热面积,采用编织铜引线代替铜棒引线。初级线圈外接磁体电源,利用电磁感应原理,在次级回路感应出超导导体接头测试所需的电流。已经成功进行了一次CC导体接头的低温实验,接头电阻的测试结果分别为8.4纳欧姆和9.3纳欧姆。     

Wide Variety of Experiments Using a Cryogen-Free 27.5 T Hybrid Magnet and a Cryogen-Free 18.1 T Superconducting Magnet

A cryogen-free hybrid magnet without liquid helium for operation, generating 27.5 T in a 32 mm room temperature bore of an 8 MW water-cooled resistive insert magnet in an 8.5 T background field of a cryogen-free superconducting outsert magnet, is being operated for basic research at low temperatures down to 17 mK in combination with a dilution refrigerator. In addition, we are developing functional materials using a differential thermal analysis DTA at high temperatures up to 1473 K in high fields up to 27 T. This cryogen-free hybrid magnet will be upgraded to generate 29 T by improving the outer superconducting magnet. A cryogen-free 18.1 T superconducting magnet with a 52 mm room temperature experimental bore, consisting of a Bi₂Sr₂Ca₂Cu₃O₁₀ (Bi2223) insert coil, has been developed using a GM-JT cryocooler. Recently, bronze-tape-laminated Bi2223 has revealed excellent irreversible stress tolerance of 250 MPa at 77 K. In addition, the critical current properties for recent Bi2223 tapes are largely improved from 200 to 400 A/cm-width at 77 K in a self-field. Therefore, the stainless steel reinforcement tape incorporated for the previous Bi2223 insert coil is no longer needed for a new Bi2223 one. A new Bi2223 insert coil with almost the same size as the existing insert coil can generate two times higher fields at the elevated operation current from 162 to 191 A. An upgraded cryogen-free superconducting magnet can offer a long-term experiment at the constant magnetic field of 20 T for an in-field heat-treatment investigation.     

Demagnetization of a Bi-2223 high-temperature superconducting coil in RT-1 through spontaneous temperature rise

The Ring Trap 1 (RT-1) device produces a magnetospheric configuration for the confinement of a high-β plasma with a Bi-2223 high-temperature superconducting magnet. Here we report the results of emergency demagnetization of the superconducting coil, where we could not connect current leads, temperature measurement connectors, and connectors for a persistent-current switch (PCS) heater to the coil. The spontaneous warming of the coil caused a rise in the flux-flow resistance of the superconducting coil, and the persistent current slowly decreased as coil resistance increased. Approximately 98% of the total stored magnetic energy was safely released before the quenching of the PCS, and there was no substantial damage to the superconducting coil.     

A Kinetic Inductance Ammeter with Coplanar Waveguide Input Structure for Magnetic Flux Focusing

We propose a multiplexible kinetic inductance ammeter, which uses a high-quality-factor, superconducting, lumped-element, kinetic inductance resonator as a current sensor, a short, superconducting coplanar waveguide (CPW) for current input, and a CPW transmission line for the sensor readout. The resonator consists of an interdigitated capacitor and a superconducting loop that inductively couples to the input CPW. Current running through the central line of the input CPW generates magnetic fields which are focused into the gaps of the input CPW. These magnetic fields can be measured collectively as the magnetic flux through the superconducting loop. The kinetic inductance of the superconducting loop depends on the screening current for the magnetic flux, so the input current is converted to a change in the frequency of the resonator. We analyze the response and noise of a kinetic inductance ammeter with a high-resistivity NbN loop.     

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.     

A large superconducting dipole cooled by forced circulation of two phase helium

A large superconducting dipole cooled by forced circulation of two-phase helium is described. Details are given of the magnet design and construction. A short discussion of some cryogenic problems are presented together with the first results of the dipole's operation.     

Long term operation of low noise DC-SQUID coupled to a very high Q gravitational radiation detector

We have coupled a very low noise dc-SQUID to the gravitational radiation detector of the Rome group at CERN laboratories. The SQUID used is a multiloop thin-film device with an input inductance of 1.6 μH, loop inductance of 5 pH and coupling coefficient of 0.5. The gravitational radiation detector is composed by a 2.3 tons Aluminum cylinder mechanically coupled to a resonant capacitive transducer; this is matched to the SQUID by means of a large superconducting transformer. The signal to be detected is essentially composed by the two mode frequencies at about 1 kHz and with quality factors of the order of 4×10⁶. To operate in a closed feedback loop mode we have used a particular setup in order not to degrade the performance of the system. The system operated for seven months with some interruptions due to refilling of liquid helium and various tests on the apparatus. The flux noise obtained was 1.5 to3times10^{-6} Phi_{o}/sqrt{Hz}at 1 kHz with a linearity over 6 orders of magnitude and a long term stability of1.5 times 10^{-8} Phi_{o}/hour.     

Magnetic Susceptibility Measurements at Ultra-low Temperatures

We report the design and operation of a device for ac magnetic susceptibility measurements that can operate down to 1 mK. The device, a modification of the standard mutual inductance bridge, is designed with detailed consideration of the thermalization and optimization of each element. First, in order to reduce local heating, the primary coil is made with superconducting wire. Second, a low-temperature transformer which is thermally anchored to the mixing chamber of a dilution refrigerator, is used to match the output of the secondary coil to a high-sensitivity bridge detector. The careful thermal anchoring of the secondary coil and the matching transformer is required to reduce the overall noise temperature and maximize sensitivity. The sample is immersed in liquid ³He to minimize the Kapitza thermal resistance. The magnetic susceptibility of several magnetic compounds, such as the well-known spin gap compound NiCl₂-4SC(NH₂)₂ and other powdered samples, have been successfully measured to temperatures well below 10 mK.     

Homogeneous magnet design using linear programming

We introduce a technique for designing homogeneous magnets using linear programming, We first show that minimum-power homogeneous magnet design can be cast as a linear programming problem. We also show that the method is applicable to minimum conductor mass superconducting magnet design. The method has several advantages over existing techniques including: it allows complete flexibility in arbitrary geometric constraints on both the coil locations and the shape of the homogeneous volume; it guarantees a globally optimal solution; and it offers rapid computation speed (about 30 s). Three resistive magnet design examples and one shielded superconducting magnet design are presented to illustrate the flexibility of the method     

Design and operation of a protection system for transformers with superconducting windings

Power transformers with superconducting windings need a protection system to prevent damage to the low-loss superconducting winding by an abnormally high current. The generally accepted protection technique which uses auxiliary coils has been analysed using a network representation. The current distribution between main and auxiliary coil is expressed in terms of geometrical parameters. Experimental data on current transfer and main coil recovery in a test transformer are presented and a method of obtaining a very low auxiliary coil current is suggested.     

Proposal of DC shield reactor type superconducting fault current limiter

Saturated DC reactor type superconducting fault current limiter (SFCL) had been proposed two years ago. It was classified to rectifier type SFCL. The changing inductance value with the operating mode has superior characteristics to reduce voltage sag during step increase of the load current. But it has the disadvantage of its weight. In this paper, rectifier type SFCL with shielded reactor has been proposed. The reactor which has superconducting ring or tube inside its winding is substituted to the DC link of the rectifier. The configuration looks like an air core transformer with secondary short winding. When the current through the bulk shield-ring reaches to a certain level, the flux penetrates to the shield body and finite impedance appears in the primary winding. In other words, when the surface flux density exceeds its critical flux density, the flux penetrates into the bulk superconductor, and increases equivalent inductance. The equivalent transient resistance of the shield was represented as a function of exponential of the time. Using this equivalent transient resistance, the transient impedance was expressed. The transient wave analysis using EMTDC (electro-magnetic transients in DC systems) has been described. Simulated waveforms are shown considering the source inductance, the leakage inductance, the coupling coefficient and the forward voltage drop of the semiconductor. And voltage sag was also investigated with 50% step load increase.Preliminary design was also performed. The coil size and number of turns are designed to obtain adequate inductance for the current limitation, and the central magnetic field of the coils are calculated. There is optimal aspect ratio to minimize the magnetic field with restriction in outer diameter of the coil.     

Transformer design for reducing the inrush current by asymmetrical winding

Abstract

This study proposes a novel approach for designing transformers to reduce the inrush current using asymmetrical winding. Differently from traditional methods, the inrush current was reduced based on increasing the inrush equivalent inductance by changing the proportion of inner layer to outer layer in coil winding. To estimate the distributive ratio of winding, the formulae of the inrush equivalent inductance and the leakage inductance are calculated from the structural parameters of the transformer. By theoretical analyses, an optimum distributive ratio of coil winding is presented. Experimental results confirm that inrush current can be reduced concurrently with appropriate voltage regulation and short‐circuit current in transformer.     

Behaviour of a flux pump using an automatic superconducting switch

A simple kind of magnetic flux pump, consisting of a small superconducting coil L₁ in parallel with a superconducting magnet L₂, has been constructed and tested. The device is attached to the secondary of a transformer and the entire assembly rests in a liquid helium bath. Persistent currents in L₂ are generated by a power supply which can be made particularly simple if an axial magnetic field H_b is applied to L₁ to make its critical current sense-dependent. Circuits analysis shows that the rate of flux pumping is dependent on the magnitude of the power supply output and the final persistent current level is related to H_b. These results are confirmed by experiments in which several circuit parameters were varied. A typical experiment generated 35 A in a small magnet in about 10 minutes. Suggestions are made for improvements on this behaviour.     

Basic study of high Tc superconducting magnet excited by thermoelectromotive force

This paper describes experimental results of a high T_c superconducting magnet excited by a thermoelectromotive force. This magnet system has an advantage of simple configuration because a thermoelectric element is much smaller than a conventional external power source for a superconducting magnet. It is demonstrated that more than 50 A of transport current is obtained in the present experiment. The heat leakage to the coil is about double amount as compared with a conventional magnet system with an external power source.     

Design and test of a simplified and reliable cryogenic system for high speed superconducting generator applications

Under the contract with Air Force Research Lab (AFRL), General Electric has successfully tested a high speed, superconducting generator for a Multimegawatt Electric Power System (MEPS). As the first successful full-power test of a superconducting generator for the Air Force, the demonstration tested the generator’s load up to 1.3 MW and over 10,000 rpm. A key component of the generator system is a closed loop cryo-refrigeration system to cool the field excitation coil at liquid neon temperature. This paper reports the design and tests of the cryogenic system, including the liquid neon dewar, cryogenic cooling loop for the high temperature superconducting (HTS) field coil and the cryostat. Performance data during both short-term load run and long-term non-load run were presented. Also, some key issues to design a reliable cryogenic system for a superconducting generator were discussed.     

Electromagnetic analysis of a superconducting transformer for high current characterization of cable in conduit conductors in background magnetic field

A large cable-in-conduit-conductor (CICC) test facility has been designed and fabricated at the High Magnetic Field Laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CHMFL) in order to meet the test requirement of the conductors which are applied to the future fusion reactor. The critical component of the test facility is an 80 kA superconducting transformer which consists of a multi-turn primary coil and a minor-turn secondary coil. As the current source of the conductor samples, the electromagnetic performance of the superconducting transformer determines the stability and safety of the test facility. In this paper, the key factors and parameters, which have much impact on the performance of the transformer, are analyzed in detail. The conceptual design and optimizing principles of the transformer are discussed. An Electromagnetic-Circuit coupled model built in ANSYS Multiphysics is successfully used to investigate the electromagnetic characterization of the transformer under the dynamic operation condition.     

Influence of a Thick Stainless Steel Shell on the Field Waveform of a Pulsed Magnet

The coupling between a pulsed magnet coil and a coaxial stainless steel shell has been modelled by means of PMDS and ANSYS. The cylinder increases the equivalent resistance and reduces the equivalent inductance in the circuit, resulting in a decrease of peak field by up to 5%. Experiments have been carried out for a 10 T coil with and without the steel shell at room temperature. The results are in good agreement with the simulations.