Advantages of laser-acoustical leak testing for construction and operation of low-temperature installations and superconducting experiments

Abstract

At the Institute of Technical Physics of the Research Center Karlsruhe, superconducting magnets for nuclear fusion applications have been tested in the vacuum tank TOSKA for more than 20 years. A crucial test parameter of the magnet coils (mass up to 120 metric tons) as well as of the peripheral components, such as current leads (up to 80 kA), helium refrigerators (2 kW), and low-temperature transfer lines (length ∼200 m), is their vacuum tightness at operating conditions (minimum temperature ∼2 K, maximum refrigerant pressure 25 bar). Because the final tests at cryotemperature are costly and time consuming, intermediate tests at room temperature have already been performed at the stages of manufacturing, certification, and assembling, and prior to cooldown. So far, these tightness tests have been performed with probe gas helium employing a conventional mass spectrometer leak detector, whereby the smallest detectable leakage is limited by the He partial pressure in the surrounding air. Therefore, a new technique of leak measurement was investigated using the probe gas sulfur hexafluoride SF6, which does not occur in natural air, and which can be sensitively detected by a laser-acoustical leak detector. The obtained experimental results reveal the substantial advantages of the new method with respect to detection sensitivity, testing expenditure, and costs. The results can be transferred to tightness tests in other fields of technology.