Residual magnetic field induced by superconducting magnets of Large Helical Device

The residual magnetic field was measured to investigate its source for the Large Helical Device, the superconducting magnet system of which consists of two Helical Coils (HCs), two Inner Vertical (IV) coils, two Inner Shaping (IS) coils, and two Outer Vertical (OV) coils. NbTi cable-in-conduit conductors were adopted for the IV, IS, and OV coils. Firstly, Hall probes were installed at five periodic positions on the mid-plane of the inner cylinder of the cryostat. Since the residual field was changed by around 0.1 mT at all the positions during the warm-up of the superconducting coils, a major part of the residual field had to be induced by magnetization of the coils. In the next campaign (cool-down, plasma experiment, and warm-up), the Hall probes were moved to the five different vertical positions in order to measure the distribution of the residual field. Calculation of the residual field has been carried out under the assumption that NbTi filaments in each conductor are magnetized in the same direction as the field at the center of the conductor during excitation. From comparison between the measured and calculated values, we conclude that the residual field from the coils that had been excited to high currents should be reduced by around 35%, due to the self-field in strands in the conductor. The best fitted critical current densities of the IV and IS coils are 1.31 and 2.81 x 1010 A/m2, respectively, which are consistent with the field dependence obtained from the magnetization curve of each strand.

Automated summary

In this study, the residual magnetic field of the Large Helical Device was investigated. The source of the field was found to be the magnetization of the coils in the superconducting magnet system. The distribution of the residual field was measured at different vertical positions and the reduction in field from high current coils was calculated to be around 35%.