Design of the metastable eccentric coil test

The Eccentric Coil Test (ECT) described herein was a proposed facility for testing individual superconducting coils under conditions similar to those encountered by a toroidal field coil of a tokamak. In order to arrive at designs worthy of large scale proof testing, one needs the results of tests in a facility which (a) can separate the effects of the different variables, (b) has the possibility of pushing the test coil to ''failure'' in different waves, and (c) in which several different test coils can be studied without excessive costs in time or money. ECT consists of a relatively large background coil, a replaceable test coil, and small coils for the production of localized pulsed fields. The midplanes of the test and background coils are coincident, but their axes are displaced in order to provide asymmetric magnetic forces on the test coil. The background coil inside diameter is 89 cm; a variety of test coil sizes can be accommodated. Included in the discussion is the rationale of the test, objectives and requirements, a description of the apparatus, and predicted performance