Speaker
Description
An important step in the development of fusion as a future power source is the development of plasma facing materials that can function over long periods of time. While ITER and other devices like Wendelstein 7-X and the Joint European Torus will provide insights into divertor and first wall performance, a dedicated device to advance the understanding of material performance in representative plasma environments is needed. The Material Plasma Exposure eXperiment (MPEX) has been proposed as a linear plasma device to generate fusion reactor-like plasma energy and particle flux at the target materials with electron temperatures of 1-15 eV and electron densities of 10^20 to 10^21 m-3. A design study was completed to assess the feasibility of superconducting magnets using materials such as Nb3Sn, NbTi, MgB2, and YBCO from liquid helium to liquid nitrogen temperatures with respect to commercially available conductors. for superconducting magnets need warm bore diameters of 43.2 cm with non-uniform central fields between 0.4 T and 2.4 T. While NbTi was selected for the superconducting magnet due to its low risk the use of MgB2 and YBCO presented unique benefits that could outweigh these risks if certain performance milestones can be met.
This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan