► Experience from operating a large superconducting magnet test facility is shared. ► Equipments, human resources, safety assessment and testing campaigns are described. ► Main cryogenic ...difficulties: leaks and pollution are depicted with solutions. ► Critical electrical difficulties were insulation from high voltage. ► Magnet control system, magnet safety system and instrumentation are presented.
The construction, commissioning, and operation phases of the W7-X cryomagnetic test facility in CEA Saclay lasted ten years. The large diversity of equipments called, specialties involved and problems solved attest the expertise that was required to operate the test facility and test the coils. Nearly one hundred cryogenic tests were performed on the seventy W7-X coils, at a rate always increasing, using two cryostats each holding two coils.
This paper presents the test facility and its operation first, the cryogenic difficulties that were confronted with their solutions, the electro-magnetic difficulties encountered along with corrective actions, and finally the instrumentation and data acquisition aspects.
In the frame of the W7X stellarator project, a cooperation agreement between the Max-Planck-Institut fur Plasmaphysik and CEA has been set-up in order to perform the acceptance tests of all the 70 ...superconducting coils that compose the W7X magnet system. The main purpose of these tests is to demonstrate that each coil can work at nominal operating conditions, with enough margin to ensure the coil safety during the stellerator operations. For that purpose, CEA has built a new test facility at Saclay. This paper presents a general overview of the test facility. It is mainly composed of two large cryostats (useful space of 5 m diameter and 4.2 in height), a cryogenic source to produce supercritical helium at 4.5 K and 6 bar with a power rating of 200 W, and an electrical power supply of 25 kA. Each cryostat can contain two coils. It is then possible to cool down two coils at the same time, and to warm up two others. But only one coil can be energized at the same time. As the assembly of the facility is now nearly completed, the first cryogenic tests with the prototype coil (DEMO) have started. The first conclusions of these tests and the facility performances will also be discussed in this paper.
The ANTARES project Arpesella, C
Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment,
05/1998, Volume:
409, Issue:
1-3
Journal Article, Conference Proceeding
Peer reviewed
The ANTARES project aims at the design and realisation of a prototype extensible to a km-scale neutrino undersea detector. The step-by-step programme is here presented.
