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High-temperature superconducting tape for magnets at 50+ tesla

Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2018 3:40 am
by Skipjack
This should have implications for various nuclear fusion reactor designs:
https://nationalmaglab.org/magnet-devel ... cting-tape

Re: High-temperature superconducting tape for magnets at 50+ tesla

Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2018 2:39 pm
by paperburn1
MR. Fusion here we come.



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Re: High-temperature superconducting tape for magnets at 50+ tesla

Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 3:17 pm
by Tom Ligon
"High Temperature" is relative. The paper shows they're working at 30 K and below, and the performance falls off at high current in the 30 K tests. Performance at 4.7 K is outstanding.

Liquid nitrogen runs about 77 K, so you don't get this sort of performance at liquid nitrogen temps. This means I can't build my own 50 T magnets yet.

I'd be so happy with my own 5 T Polywell, I could just sing! Let these guys play with their 50 T projects ... I personally am too careless laying down tools and having stuff in my pockets to come anywhere near such a monster! I can just imagine the safety rules you would need to work in such an environment!

Re: High-temperature superconducting tape for magnets at 50+ tesla

Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 7:59 pm
by choff

Re: High-temperature superconducting tape for magnets at 50+ tesla

Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 9:43 pm
by paperburn1
Welders need not apply. :D

Re: High-temperature superconducting tape for magnets at 50+ tesla

Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2018 5:59 pm
by Skipjack
Tom Ligon wrote:"High Temperature" is relative. The paper shows they're working at 30 K and below, and the performance falls off at high current in the 30 K tests. Performance at 4.7 K is outstanding.

Liquid nitrogen runs about 77 K, so you don't get this sort of performance at liquid nitrogen temps. This means I can't build my own 50 T magnets yet.

I'd be so happy with my own 5 T Polywell, I could just sing! Let these guys play with their 50 T projects ... I personally am too careless laying down tools and having stuff in my pockets to come anywhere near such a monster! I can just imagine the safety rules you would need to work in such an environment!
I am not sure anymore where I read that, but I think that up to 20 Tesla is still fine with 77k. 20 Tesla would still be almost twice as strong as the magnets in ITER. This would make both MIT's ARC and Tokamak Energy's reactor feasible.

Re: High-temperature superconducting tape for magnets at 50+ tesla

Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2018 8:57 am
by RERT
That ties in with what I recall of Dennis Whyte's presentation at the Tokamak Energy event at the Royal Society. He said that the HTS had changed the game so that instead of fields being limited to a few T (by superconducting transitions IIRC), the field limit shifted to around 22T, and the practical constraint on the designs was the structural strength of the steel used to build the machine (cue Wylie Coyote).

Re: High-temperature superconducting tape for magnets at 50+ tesla

Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2018 4:51 pm
by Skipjack
RERT wrote:That ties in with what I recall of Dennis Whyte's presentation at the Tokamak Energy event at the Royal Society. He said that the HTS had changed the game so that instead of fields being limited to a few T (by superconducting transitions IIRC), the field limit shifted to around 22T, and the practical constraint on the designs was the structural strength of the steel used to build the machine (cue Wylie Coyote).
Yes, it might have been Dennis Whyte who said it.