Role of the large coil program in the development of superconducting magnets for fusion reactors

Three U.S. industrial teams are designing and will build one coil each to a common set of specifications. Coil specifications and test conditions were chosen to insure maximum relevance to fusion program needs. Each test coil will have a 2.5 x 3.5 m D-shape bore, will contain about 7 MA-turns, and must operate at a peak field of 8 T while subjected to pulsed fields up to 0.14 T in a test stand that can accommodate up to 6 coils in a compact toroidal array. Coils by General Dynamics/Convair and General Electric will use different NbTi conductors cooled by pool-boiling helium. The Westinghouse coil will use Nb/sub 3/Sn cooled by a forced flow of supercritical helium. These coils will be delivered in 1980 and 1981 for testing in the Large Coil Test Facility at Oak Ridge in a compact toroidal array with three coils from outside the U.S. These will be produced by EURATOM, Japan, and Switzerland for testing under an International Energy Agency agreement.