The cryogenic system for ITER CC superconducting conductor test facility

This paper describes the cryogenic system of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) Correction Coils (CC) test facility, which consists of a 500 W/4.5 K helium refrigerator, a 50 kA superconducting transformer cryostat (STC) and a background field magnet cryostat (BFMC). The 500 W/4.5 K helium refrigerator synchronously produces both the liquid helium (LHe) and supercritical helium (SHe). The background field magnet and the primary coil of the superconducting transformer (PCST) are cooled down by immersing into 4.2 K LHe. The secondary Cable-In-Conduit Conductor (CICC) coil of the superconducting transformer (SCST), superconducting joints and the testing sample of ITER CC are cooled down by forced-flow supercritical helium. During the commissioning experiment, all the superconducting coils were successfully translated into superconducting state. The background field magnet was fully cooled by immersing it into 4.2 K LHe and generated a maximal background magnetic field of 6.96 T; the temperature of transformer coils and current leads was reduced to 4.3 K; the inlet temperature of SHe loop was 5.6 K, which can meet the cooling requirements of CIC-Conductor and joint boxes. It is noted that a novel heat cut-off device for High Temperature Superconducting (HTS) binary current leads was introduced to reduce the heat losses of transformer cryostat.

Research highlights► A superconducting test facility with 50 kA current and 7 T magnetic field has built. ► To reduce heat losses, a novel heat cut-off device for HTS current leads was introduced. ► HTS current leads were used for charging primary coil, reducing heat loads to 0.13W. ► Some pieces of AlN are used in heat cut-off device for insulation and heat transfer. ► LHe and SHe were supplied simultaneously by self-designed valves external throttling.