International large coil task: Testing of the largest supeconducting toroidal magnet system

The Large Coil Task is an international collaboration of the United States, Euratom, Japan and Switzerland to develop large superconducting magnets for fusion reactors. The first tests of all six coils were begun in February 1986 when the 420 tonne test array was cooled to 4.2 K. Each of the heavily instrumented coils was tested alone to full design current. Heat perturbations (recovery, simulating nuclear heating, or current sharing temperature measurements) to investigate design limits were carried out. All six coils have been tested in the full array to 100% design current, producing an 8.1 T maximum field. All the coils have been energized simultaneously to 8 T midplane field, and they have performed very well without quenching. (author). 7 refs, 4 figs