Application of the homogenisation method to the analysis of superconducting coils

Abstract An application of the homogenisation method to the analysis of superconducting coils for nuclear fusion devices is presented. The proposed procedure is composed of three parts. First effective coefficients and second order correctors are calculated. Only one cell of periodicity made up of the cross-section of a single conductor together with its bonded epoxy layer is taken into account for this purpose. In the next step the finite element method is applied to solve the problem of the global mechanical behaviour of the whole homogenised structure. Finally, given the global behaviour, the code for homogenisation is used again to obtain the local stress image. Numerical results dealing with the validation of the procedure and a realistic example complete this paper.