Abstract
The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is responsible for design, production and test of the High Temperature Superconductor (HTS) current leads for the stellarator Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X). In total 14 current leads with a maximum current of 18.2kA are required. Special feature is the upside-down orientation of the current leads because of the location of the power supplies in the basement of the experimental area of W7-X. One further important requirement is the Paschen tight electrical insulation of current leads and the connection to the bus bar system. Due to some very specific manufacturing steps, budget and time restrictions, it has been mutually decided between the project partners to manufacture most of the components in house, except the HTS stacks which have been produced and delivered by industry. As the semi-finished parts were manufactured in the central workshop of KIT, the assembly of the current leads was performed in the ITEP (Institute for Technical Physics). The final acceptance test of the current leads is performed at KIT, using a dedicated test cryostat assembled beside and connected to the main vacuum vessel of the TOSKA facility. The paper describes the status of the manufacturing of the current leads. In addition attention is given to specific problems that occurred during the manufacturing and testing.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have