A Non-planar ReBCO Test Coil with 3D-printed Aluminum Support Structure for the EPOS Stellarator

TL;DR

This paper presents the design, manufacturing, and testing of a non-planar ReBCO coil with a 3D-printed aluminum support, demonstrating its performance and manufacturing precision for potential stellarator applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel non-planar ReBCO coil with a 3D-printed aluminum support structure and provides experimental validation of its magnetic performance.

Findings

Achieved a 21 mT magnetic field at 120 A current.

Manufacturing deviations were within 0.3 mm, indicating high precision.

Discharge times of 0.63 s in LN2 and 2.92 s with cryocooler.

Abstract

We report on the test of a small scale, non-planar coil using non-insulated ReBCO tape wound on a 3D-printed aluminum support structure. A 3D-scan of the winding frame which was printed out of AlSi10Mg using selective laser melting, showed peak manufacturing deviations of 0.3 mm. We tested the coil with 21 turns of 3 mm wide tape cooled both by liquid nitrogen and with a cryocooler. We achieved a central field strength of up to 21 mT which agrees with the prediction suggesting that we manufactured the coil without defects. The peak field was reached at a supply current of 120 A. The current leads showed a contact resistance of $\left(2.25\pm0.13\right)\mu\Omega$. The discharge time $L/R$ was found to be 0.63 s in liquid nitrogen and 2.92 s when cooled by the cryocooler. From this we estimate a winding pack temperature of 41 K.