Heat front propagation and quench initiation analysis of the ITER toroidal field model coil

In the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) toroidal field model coil (TFMC) the experimental evaluation of the superconducting critical properties will only be possible by heating the helium upstream of the inner joint. In this coil only one of the Eve double pancakes is equipped with external heaters (DP11/DP12). A preliminary analysis of DP11 has shown that an instability of the cryogenic system, i.e. helium choking, occurs when only one pancake is heated and that, as a consequence, the test should be performed by heating with slow procedures and by cooling with high mass flow rates. We report here the final results of the heat front propagation and quench initiation analysis of the pancake DP11 and DP12, which confirm the qualitative results of the previous analysis. The uncertainty in the presently available set of joint input data is assessed parametrically. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.