The Investigation on Welding Processes for SUS316LN Tubes Used in Superconducting Magnetic System of EAST

The force flow cooled superconducting cable-in-conduit conductor (CICC) is used in both of EAST toroidal field (TF) and poloidal field (PF) coils. The conductor consists of multi-stage NbTi superconducting cable and 1.5 mm thick square jacket. The cable is pulled through in a thin wall circular jacket and then compacted to square cross-section conductor. The jacket material is SUS316LN austenitic stainless steel seamless tubes (about 10 m each), which is assembled by butt-welding up to 600 m. The results of the welding procedure investigation and quality assurance procedures carrying out are described in this paper.