MIT News March 4, 2024
The SPARC Toroidal Field Model Coil (TFMC) Program was a three-year effort between 2018 and 2021 that developed novel rare earth barium copper oxide (REBCO) superconductor technologies and then successfully utilized these technologies to design, build, and test a first-in-class, high-field (∼20 T), representative-scale (∼3 m) superconducting toroidal field (TF) coil. The program was executed jointly by the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) and Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) as a technology enabler of the superconducting high-field pathway to fusion energy, and as a risk retirement program for the no insulation (NI) TF magnet in the SPARC net-energy fusion tokamak. The dc and ac electromagnetic performance of the magnet predicted by new advances in high-fidelity computational models was confirmed. While the TFMC was intentionally not optimized for quench resiliency—and suffered localized thermal damage in response to an intentional open-circuit quench at 31.5 kA terminal current—the extensive data and validated models that it produced represent a critical step towards this important objective. The program achieved its programmatic goals… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
View of the TFMC and the TFMC Test Facility at the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center.
Credit: IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity, Volume: 34, Issue: 2, March 2024Â