The China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR) is a new tokamak device, whose magnet system includes toroidal field (TF), central solenoid (CS) and poloidal field (PF) coils. The main goal is to build a fusion engineering tokamak reactor with 50–200 MW fusion power and self-sufficiency by blanket, which means that the deuterium–tritium reaction in the plasma produces neutrons and alpha particles, and the neutrons react with the lithium-containing blanket surrounding the plasma, breeding the tritium by lithium–neutron reaction. To develop the manufacturing technique for the full-size CS coil, the Central Solenoid Model Coil (CSMC) project for CFETR was launched first. A Nb3Sn conductor is to be used in the CFETR CSMC, whose design refers to the ITER CS conductor with the same short-twist-pitch cable pattern. Due to the short twist pitch and relatively low void fraction, a high compaction ratio is required during cabling and the risk of strand damage is increased significantly. Although it is impossible to avoid strand deformation for this design, it is crucial to find a way to reduce strand damage as much as possible. A numerical model was used to analyze the causes of strand damage, including variation in twist pitch length as well as different mechanical properties for copper and Nb3Sn strands. Several experiments have been performed to verify the numerical results, including cabling trials for different conditions and critical current (Ic) tests on strands with/without deformation. The results show that the numerical analysis is consistent with the experiments and provides the optimal cabling conditions for the CFETR CSMC.

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The China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR) is a new tokamak fusion reactor under preliminary design, where the toroidal field (TF) coil has been designed to create a magnetic field of over 14.3 T. The TF conductors need to operate stably at 14.3 T, requiring the exclusion of conductor performance degradation from thermal and electromagnetic loading as much as possible. The maximum Lorentz force will reach about 1200 kN m −1 , which is much higher than that of ITER conductors. In previous research, performance degradation was found during electromagnetic cycles and warm-up-cool-down cycles. A correlation was found between a conductor's degradation and its mechanical properties. According to the analysis, a conductor with a short twist pitch (STP) scheme or a copper wound superconducting strand (CWS) design has large stiffness, which enables significant performance improvement in terms of the electromagnetic and thermal load cycling. The cable stiffness is closely related to the number of inter-strand contact points inside the conductor. Based on this concept, four types of prototype cable-in-conduit conductor samples with STP and CWS design were manufactured. The number of inter-strand contact points was analyzed, and mechanical transverse load testing was performed at 77 K. The results show that the conductors with more contact points per unit length exhibit a higher stiffness. However, the cable designed with high cable stiffness caused strand indentation, which was also investigated. In this paper, the conductor design and experimental results are discussed and compared with ITER TF and central solenoid conductors.

China fusion engineering test reactor (CFETR) is a new tokamak device, whose magnet system includes the toroidal field, central solenoid (CS), and poloidal field coils. In order to develop the manufacturing process for the full-size CS coil, the CS model coil (CSMC) project was launched first. The cable-inconduit conductor used for CFETR CSMC refers to ITER CS conductor with the same short twist pitch cable pattern. They have the similar layout. In order to qualify the manufacturing process and performance of conductor, two short sample conductors with two different jacket materials (316LN and high-Mn steel) were manufactured. The conductors were tested at Swiss Plasma Center successfully. In future, the CSMC will be tested at the Institute of Plasma Physics, CAS (ASIPP). In this paper, the manufacturing processes for conductor are described in detail. The strand damage analysis and conductor performance were also discussed.