The design of a superconducting coil from high-performance REBCO coated conductors is often complicated because of complex anisotropy of the critical current density J_c . It is important to understand how much detail of this feature must be taken into consideration in the prediction of maximum achievable current and the expected ac loss. We present the results of investigation performed with a small (ten turns, 60 mm inner diameter) coil made from SuperPower tape of 12 mm width. The knowledge of J_c(B,θ) determined on short sample allowed prediction of the maximum achievable current of the coil and the ac loss behavior. We have also investigated the effect of the tape nonuniformity. Our results confirm that the lateral nonuniformity when J_c at tape edges is lower than in its center leads to significant increase of ac loss. A longitudinal nonuniformity, in particular a reduction of critical current in some portion along the tape length, is hardly observable in the ac loss result. On the other hand, using a piece of tape with lower J_c in the innermost coil turn would significantly reduce the maximum current. We also present calculations showing the change in current-voltage curve and redistribution of ac dissipation in the case of nonuniform tape quality.

High temperature superconductor (HTS) machine is a promising candidate for the electrical aircraft propulsion, due to its great advantage on high power density. However, the HTS machine always suffers the problem of low thermal stability during quench. In this study, we apply a no-insulation (NI) coil technique on the rotor windings of HTS machines to enhance the stability and safety of the electrical aircraft. The NI HTS rotor windings experience ripple magnetic fields, which leads to induced eddy currents through turn-to-turn contacts. This induced current and accompanying losses will considerably affect the practicality of this technique. To study this issue, an equivalent circuit network model is developed, and it is validated by experiments. Then analysis using this model show that most of induced current flows in the outermost turns of the NI HTS coil because of skin effect, and lower turn-to-turn resistivity leads to higher transport current induced and more significant accumulation of turn-to-turn loss. A grading turn-to-turn resistivity is proposed to reduce the transport current induced and AC loss accumulation and meanwhile keep the high thermal stability of the NI HTS coil. Optimization of turn-to-turn resistivity is required when the NI HTS coil is applied in the machines environments.

High-temperature superconductors from the RE BCO ( RE = rare earth) family have attained industrial production and their performance is continuously being enhanced. However, cabling technology for high-current (kA range) cables for magnet technology is still challenging and there are only few cable concepts available (CORC ^® , Roebel cable, twisted stack cable). Each of them exhibits different characteristics. In this paper we experimentally investigate CORC ^® cable produced in-house utilizing a copper tube former. Such a former offers a central cooling channel for partial or complete cable cooling by forced flow of coolant. We focus mainly on AC loss due to transporting AC current, an external applied AC magnetic field and their simultaneous action. In the case of transporting AC current we found indications that a large part of the total loss has its origin in eddy currents due to an axial magnetic field. For the investigation of magnetization AC loss, we prepared several samples with different configurations. In this case we found direct evidence for increasing AC loss due to losses in the metallic former. However, we also found that at low field amplitudes the magnetization AC loss of the complete cable is lower than the loss in the bare former. This is caused by shielding of the magnetic field by a superconductor, which was also confirmed by numerical simulations.

The European DEMO, i.e. the demonstration fusion power plant designed in the framework of the Roadmap to Fusion Electricity by the EUROfusion Consortium, is approaching the end of the pre-conceptual design phase, to be accomplished with a Gate Review in 2020, in which all DEMO subsystems will be reviewed by panels of independent experts. The latest 2018 DEMO baseline has major and minor radius of 9.1 m and 2.9 m, plasma current 17.9 MA, toroidal field on the plasma axis 5.2 T, and the peak field in the toroidal-field (TF) conductor 12.0 T. The 900 ton heavy TF coil is prepared in four low-temperature-superconductor (LTS) variants, some of them differing slightly, other significantly, from the ITER TF coil design. Two variants of the CS coils are investigated—a purely LTS one resembling the ITER CS, and a hybrid coil, in which the innermost layers made of HTS allow the designers either to increase the magnetic flux, and thus the duration of the fusion pulse, or to reduce the outer radius of the CS coil. An issue presently investigated by mechanical analyzes is the fatigue load. Two variants of the poloidal field coils are being investigated. The magnet and conductor design studies are accompanied by the experimental tests on both LTS and HTS prototype samples, covering a broad range of DC and AC tests. Testing of quench behavior of the 15 kA HTS cables, with size and layout relevant for the fusion magnets and cooled by forced flow helium, is in preparation.

In recent years, the $H$ formulation of Maxwell's equation has become the de facto standard for simulating the time-dependent electromagnetic behavior of superconducting applications with commercial software. However, there are cases where other formulations are desirable, for example for modeling superconducting turns in electrical machines or situations where the superconductor is better described by the critical state than by a power-law resistivity. In order to accurately and efficiently handle these situations, here we consider two approaches based on the magnetic vector potential: the $T-A$ formulation of Maxwell's equations (with power-law resistivity) and the implementation of a quasi critical state model with a steep $E-J$ relationship limited at $J_{\mathrm c}$ . In this contribution, we extend the $T-A$ formulation to thick conductors so that large coils with different coupling scenarios between the turns can be considered. We also discuss the quasi critical state model in terms of its ability to calculate AC losses: in particular, we investigate the dependence of the calculated AC losses on the frequency of the AC excitation and the possibility of using quick one-step (instead of full cycle) simulations to calculate the AC losses.