Analysis of Electrodynamic Transients in the ITER PF Joints

The paper presents a numerical study on electrodynamic behavior of the inter-pancake twin-box joints of the Poloidal Field (PF) coils of the ITER Magnet System. This work was carried out with the THELMA code, developed at the University of Bologna. The THELMA model was adapted to describe both the superconducting wires and the resistive saddle of the joint in a set of reference configurations representative of a set of experimental tests performed on a joint sample at the SULTAN facility in Villigen, Switzerland. The model was applied to analyze both the DC joint resistance measurements and the AC loss vs frequency curve, in order to obtain a full representation of the joint electromagnetic behavior. The paper reports a comparison between the numerical and experimental results and parametric studies on the impact of the main model parameters on the loss vs frequency curve.