The design of superconducting magnets demands a multi-phase, multi-scale and multi-physics approach which can be more or less challenging according to the complexity of the requirements. According to the different schools, the design effort is usually performed in three or four phases: we can identify them starting from the simplest to the most complex as feasibility design, conceptual design,...
The Coated Conductor (CC) tapes appear to be promising for the production of magnets and cables due to their high critical magnetic field and temperature, as well as competitive critical current density, in combination with good mechanical properties. On the other hand, the superconducting layer may exhibit high energy dissipation in an external magnetic field due to the relatively large...
To achieve the realization of a 10 TeV Muon Collider facility and reduce the ring dimension to minimize muon decay, the main bending dipole magnets must generate high magnetic fields up to 16 T. Additionally, the superconducting coil aperture must accommodate thick tungsten shielding to protect the magnet from muon decay products. These challenging requirements motivate the investigation of...
Over almost a decade, the ‘Little Big Coil (LBC)’ program at the Applied Superconductivity Center (ASC) of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (NHMFL) has focused on investigating the various limitations of rare-earth barium copper oxide coated conductors (REBCO CCs) in high-field (>40 T) and high-stress (>800 MPa) environments. Under the key philosophy of “no magnets are better than...
High-temperature Rare-Earth Barium Copper Oxide superconductor tapes are considered for devices with time-varying magnetic fields, which means they will be affected by cyclic mechanical loading and AC losses. A recent trend for lowering the AC loss of REBCO tapes is filamentization. The influence of filamentization on the mechanical strength of REBCO tapes is being actively investigated – both...
Different magnetic confinement fusion projects, as SPARC, STEP, and EU DEMO among others, will (or are considering to) employ High Temperature Superconductors (HTS) in their magnet system, due to the possibility to generate an higher magnetic field if compared to Low Temperature Superconductors (LTS), which are considered the state of the art in superconductors.
Even if HTS would increase...
A large range of HTS cable and magnet design for high field accelerators is currently being studied and modelled, while the validation of models by experimental results is still rather limited. At the SM18 magnet test facility at CERN various types of HTS magnets have been tested, including insulated, metal insulated and non-insulated coils, with a range of instrumentation including high...
Fusion magnets experience sharp dB/dt excursions, especially during plasma breakdown and current ramp-up. Calculating the instantaneous power dissipation is therefore essential for quantifying, through thermal-hydraulic simulations, the local heat load that must be handled. Toward this purpose, we have developed a modelling framework, combining analytical formulations with finite-element...
A Muon Collider is one of the most promising options for the post-LHC era, offering leptonic precision without the limitations of synchrotron radiation that affect electron machines. Its feasibility, however, is strongly constrained by the short muon lifetime (2.2 μs), which demands extremely rapid production, acceleration, cooling, and collision—posing severe technological challenges.
Among...
The ITER project represents a cornerstone of the global effort to achieve controlled thermonuclear fusion, with the objective of demonstrating the feasibility of sustaining a burning plasma and paving the way for future fusion power plants. Among its most critical subsystems are the Toroidal Field (TF) magnets, massive superconducting coils responsible for generating the strong and steady...
Bringing back the substantial idea of hybrid contact discontinuity (A. Shajii and J. P. Freidberg, 1996), thermally coupled 1-d fuild-solid system is carefully repriced on the fundamental question what is the best approach to the quench propagation model of superconducting CICC (cable-in-conduit conductor). By means of a mode analysis with the exact dispersion relation, the simple equations of...
The central solenoid (CS) of a tokamak is engineered to withstand significant fluctuations in operating currents and rapid changes in magnetic fields. These capabilities are essential for initiating plasma breakdown and ensuring subsequent plasma shaping and control. A novel design has recently been introduced for the CS system designated for the next-generation experimental fusion device....
The IPP team operated the W7-X superconducting magnet system at 1.8 T on the plasma axis in the last quarter of 2024. In contradiction to the standard 2.5 T operation the operating current in the conductors was significantly lower (11.027 kA vs. 15.32 kA). Both the lower magnetic field and the lower current affect the hotspot temperature in case of a fast discharge of the coils. Quench...
