Design of superconducting toroidal magnet coils and testing facility in the USA

In the U.S. Large Coil Program, three industrial teams are presently designing test coils to general specifications prepared by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory with guidance from USERDA. Each test coil is approximately half the bore size of reactor coils, being oval or D-shaped, with a bore of 2.5 x 3.5 m. The dimensions and operating requirements of the coils are identical for all test coils. The coils are designed to produce a peak field of at least 8 tesla at the winding of a selected coil operated at its design current. This condition is met when the selected coil is operated in a compact toroidal array of 6 coils, with the other five coils being operated at 0.8 of their design current. The six coils are of three different designs. Both pool boiling and forced flow designs are included. The coils are housed in a single large vacuum chamber for economy and testing convenience. Auxiliary coils provide a pulse field over the test coil winding volume. This auxiliary system is designed to produce a pulse field which rises to a peak of 0.14 T in 1 sec. With the exception of material damage due to neutron irradiation, all reactor requirements and environments will be either duplicated, approximated, or simulated. The test facility is being designed to accept coils producing up to 12 tesla in later phases of the program.