High temperature superconductors for fusion at the Swiss Plasma Center

Pierluigi Bruzzone, Davide Uglietti, Rainer Wesche
Iop Publishing Ltd, 2017
Journal paper

High temperature superconductors (HTS) may become in future an option for the superconducting magnets of commercial fusion plants. At the Swiss Plasma Center (SPC) the R&D activity toward HTS high current, high field cables suitable for fusion magnets started in 2012 and led in 2015 to the assembly of the first 60 kA, 12 T prototype conductor. The cable concept developed at the SPC is based on the principle of 'soldered, twisted stacks' of REBCO tapes. The required number of stacks is assembled in a cored flat cable, cooled by forced flow of supercritical helium. The sample environment of the test facility at SPC has been upgraded with a HTS adapter and a counter-flow heat exchanger to allow testing the HTS sample in a broader range of temperature (4.5 K-50 K) using the existing, NbTi based superconducting transformer and the closed loop refrigerator.

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Pierluigi Bruzzone, Davide Uglietti, Rainer Wesche
Iop Publishing Ltd, 2017
Journal paper

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https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/230590?ln=en

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Parametric study for the cooling of high temperature superconductor (HTS) current leads

Rainer Wesche

The analysis of cooling of a binary HTS 20 kA current lead (CL) operating between 4.5 and 300 K has been carried out. Assuming that the HTS module is conduction-cooled, two cooling options for the copper heat exchanger (HEX) part of the CL have been considered, i.e. (1) cooling with a single flow of gaseous helium and (2) cooling with two flows of gaseous helium. The ideal refrigerator power required to cool the whole HTS CL has been calculated for both cooling scenarios and different values of input parameters and the thermodynamic optimization has been performed for both cooling options. The obtained results indicate that the cooling Option 2 cannot provide significant savings of the refrigerator power, as compared to the Option I. However, it has been observed that at the same helium inlet temperature the temperature at the warm end of the HTS part, and the resulting number of HTS tapes, can be reduced in the Option 2 with respect to the Option 1. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Elsevier Sci Ltd2011

Parametric study for the cooling of high temperature superconductor (HTS) current leads

Rainer Wesche

The analysis of cooling of a binary HTS 20 kA current lead (CL) operating between 4.5 and 300 K has been carried out. Assuming that the HTS module is conduction-cooled, two cooling options for the copper heat exchanger (HEX) part of the CL have been considered, i.e. (1) cooling with a single flow of gaseous helium and (2) cooling with two flows of gaseous helium. The ideal refrigerator power required to cool the whole HTS CL has been calculated for both cooling scenarios and different values of input parameters and the thermodynamic optimization has been performed for both cooling options. The obtained results indicate that the cooling Option 2 cannot provide significant savings of the refrigerator power, as compared to the Option 1. However, it has been observed that at the same helium inlet temperature the temperature at the warm end of the HTS part, and the resulting number of HTS tapes, can be reduced in the Option 2 with respect to the Option 1. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Elsevier2013

Design and manufacture of 20 kA HTS current leads for a hybrid magnet system

Pierluigi Bruzzone, Stephen Alfred March, Martin Vogel, Rainer Wesche

A new series connected 25 T hybrid magnet system is being developed by the Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin (HZB) for neutron scattering experiments. In collaboration with CRPP, high temperature superconducting (HTS) current leads have been developed for the powering of the outer superconducting coil. These HTS current leads, with a nominal current rating of 20 kA, have been designed and are being manufactured by CRPP, based on the design of the 18 kA EDIPO leads. Each of the two current leads consists of an HTS module cooled only by heat conduction from the cold end and a copper part actively cooled by helium gas of 44 K inlet temperature. To reach a temperature of 53.7 K at the warm end of the HTS a helium mass flow rate of 1.37 g/s per lead is required at a current of 20 kA. The estimated heat leak at the 4.5 K level caused only by heat conduction is as low as 1.4 W. The evolution of the temperatures in the case of a loss of flow has been calculated. In addition to the design, the main fabrication steps are described. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier B. V. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of the Guest Editors.

Elsevier Science Bv2012

High-temperature superconductivity

High-temperature superconductors (abbreviated high-Tc or HTS) are defined as materials with critical temperature (the temperature below which the material behaves as a superconductor) a

Superconductivity

Superconductivity is a set of physical properties observed in certain materials where electrical resistance vanishes and magnetic fields are expelled from the material. Any material exhibiting these

Superconducting magnet

A superconducting magnet is an electromagnet made from coils of superconducting wire. They must be cooled to cryogenic temperatures during operation. In its superconducting state the wire has no elec