Proposal of mechanically jointed superconducting magnet using high critical temperature superconductors

For future design of fusion reactors, development of the remountable superconducting magnet can become one of the important technical issues, which will bring huge benefit to reduce both costs of reactor construction and maintenance. In the conventional design, however, there is a fatal problem of heat generation occurring at the joints, which causes quenching of the magnet. On the other hand HTc superconductors, which has large specific heat, are now being used for magnets. In the previous research [International Journal of Applied Electromagnetics and Mechanics, IOS Press, in press. Joint Conference of the 12th International Toki Conference on Plasma Physics and Controlled Nuclear Fusion and The Third General Scientific Assembly of Asia Plasma Fusion Association, Toki. 2001, in press], the butt jointing method of HTc S.C. tapes had been proposed and its contact performance had been reported to be relatively excellent. In this research, therefore, the current distributions in the tape are calculated by numerical analysis and then the heat generations in the jointing region are estimated to evaluate the difference of contact performance in some jointing cases. The results show that the contact performance does not dependent on relative location of each S.C. filaments.