Analysis of the effect of imbalanced flow on the KSTAR’s superconducting magnet

Abstract

The KSTAR superconducting (SC) magnets are cable-in-conduit-conductor (CICC) type magnets, which have a hundred parallel and twisted SC strands in a square conduit with a porosity of 0.36. They are cooled by the forced flow of supercritical helium with a 2bar pressure drop. A flow imbalance test of the magnet cooling channels, one of the quality assurance processes, was conducted using Ar gas at room temperature during the magnet’s manufacture, and was carried out again after assembly. In those tests, the flow imbalance was measured to be within at most ±10% for the all cooling channels, which satisfied the criterion (±20%). During individual tests of the magnets, the tendency of the flow imbalance showed that the mass flow rate of the upper (U) magnets PF1, PF2, PF5, PF6, and PF7 was higher than that of the lower (L) magnets. On the other hand, the mass flow rate of the upper magnets PF3 and PF4 was lower than that of the lower magnets. After assembly, this imbalance became more serious, and the measured mass flow rate of the upper magnets was higher than that of lower magnet at the PF2, PF3 PF4, and PF5 magnets. This imbalance can influence the temperature and the pressure of supercritical helium, as well as accelerate reversal flow and limit operating performance. In this paper, the helium behavior is analyzed and is explained to be due to the flow imbalance in the PF magnet.