Development of Saddle-Shaped Coils Using Coated Conductors for Accelerator Magnets

A project to develop fundamental technologies for accelerator magnets using high-T_c superconductors is currently underway. The primary applications in this project are fixed field alternating gradient (FFAG) accelerators for carbon cancer therapy systems and accelerator-driven subcritical reactors. One of the challenging issues in this study is to accomplish the complicated coil shape required for the accelerator magnets using YBa₂Cu₃O_x (YBCO) coated conductors. An asymmetric, three-dimensional winding structure has been designed for the main ring of an FFAG accelerator, but the anisotropic bending flexibility of coated conductors is constrained because of their tape-like shape. To demonstrate a suitable winding technology for a three-dimensional coil using coated conductors, a prototype winding machine with a two-axis motion mechanism was constructed. Based on the present design of the FFAG magnet, a saddle-shaped coil wound on a curved surface with a radius of 700 mm was designed. A 100-turn coil was wound by the winding machine using an approximately 90 m length of 3 mm-wide YBCO coated conductor made by the IBAD-MOCVD method. The coil was impregnated with epoxy resin, and the voltage-current (V-I) characteristics were evaluated in a liquid nitrogen environment. From the V-I characteristics in an electric field region of 10^-9V/cm, an index value of above 20 was obtained, which means that the superconducting properties were not degraded.