Magnet design of toroidal field coils for the UWMAK-Tokamak systems

Abstract The design of toroidal field coils for the UWMAK series of Tokamak reactor designs is described. These are cryogenically stable coils cooled in liquid helium to 4.2 K. Each individual turn of composite conductor of TiNb plus matrix conductor is epoxied into a groove in a thin disk structure. The magnet is divided into 12, 18 or 24 sectors; each sector is comprised of 15–20 thin disks which are spaced and bolted together to form a rigid structure with all disk surfaces exposed to cooling. The overall shape of each ‘D’ magnet sector is chosen so that only constant tension forces are present. Bending forces do occur but only near transition sections from the D to the central straight section of each coil. This method of rigid mounting should be compared with loose ‘jelly-roll’ windings on a central coil form, a more typical magnet fabrication technique. The design procedure is for the composite conductor TiNb plus copper (or aluminum) to be mounted in stainless steel (or aluminum alloy) disks. Full stability is obtained for strains less than 0.2% for steel support and less than 0.4% for aluminum supports based on stress-strain resistivity experiments in progress. The use of high purity aluminum conductor and high strength aluminum alloy structure reduces costs significantly dependent only on the orderly development of new aluminum TiNb composite conductors. The amount of TiNb is conservatively chosen to carry full current at 5.2 K although operation at 4.2 K is planned and full recovery to the superconducting state could be obtained with full current wire quantities selected at 4.3 K. This conservative choice doubles the amount of TiNb used at 8 tesla but provides an extra temperature rise of ΔT = 0.9 K above expected usual temperature excursions. Magnet safety and protection is based on the natural mutual coupling of many coils which are closely coupled to each other. If one coil loses current, the other coils increase their currents to keep the flux as constant as possible. The uncoupled flux and companion field energy would be discharged by a high voltage power supply temporarily set to discharge the one bad coil. Such sub-division and partial energy removal requires that there be substantial subdivision of coils into many separate dewars, so that problems can be isolated. An expression for the magnetic forces on sectioned toroidal field coils is given in closed form and is used to compute the shape of a specific coil. Data obtained here are shown to be in good agreement with those given by more complex procedures. The most severe structural design requirement is based on simultaneous loss of current in two adjacent sectors. The remaining sectors attempt to straighten out into a solenoid which compresses the structure between coils except beside the bad coil or coils where tension might exist. Such current loss in two adjacent sectors is considered an extremely unlikely occurrence since the discharge procedure mentioned above takes place in less than 1 min so that simultaneous refers to a 1 min overlap. Because of such rapid amelioration of the causes of current change and flux motion, no temperatures can exceed room temperature during the orderly shutdown of one or two coils. In general, the study illustrates that fully stable magnets using composite conductors should be engineered without major uncertainties according to straightforward scientific concepts. While subsequent designs will undoubtedly include improvements there is no reason to expect that superconductivity implies venturesome unknown TF coil performance.