A 62 MJ superconducting MHD dipole

A five-year national program on superconducting (SC) magnets technology has been carried out in Italy. The aims of the research activities were: the design and the construction of a SC prototype magnet (2 m active length) with stored energy of 62 MJ, using fabrication technologies suitable for MHD industrial size magnets; and the reference design of a SC demonstrative magnet (8 m active length). The prototype is designed to produce more than 5 T field on axis, with 5% field uniformity in the channel cross section. During the last months, the winding of the SC prototype at ANSALDO-GIE workshop in Genova has been completed utilizing about 9 km of NbTi copper stabilized CIC ("rope in a pipe" type). The most interesting aspects of the fabrication process, including the vacuum impregnation of the 7.5 tons coils in one step, the main problems in the construction of large cable in conduit magnets, and the characteristics of the product obtained are reported and discussed in the paper.<
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