Evaluation of strain applied to strands in a 13T-46kA NbAl cable-in-conduit conductor

Koizumi, Norikiyo; Nunoya, Yoshihiko; Matsui, Kunihiro; Nakajima, Hideo; Ando, Toshinari*; Okuno, Kiyoshi

A 13T-46kA NbAl insert (ALI) has been developed in the ITER-EDA to demonstrate the applicability of react-and-wind technique to TF coil fabrication. Since it is estimated that a conductor is subjected to 0.4% bending strain after heat treatment when the react-and-wind method is applied, 0.4% bending strain was artificially applied to the ALI conductor. Thus, the conductor is subjected to the thermal and bending strains. The strains due to thermal stress and conductor bending are estimated from the critical current test results of the ALI to be 0.4% and 0%, respectively. The thermal strain showed good agreement with the prediction but the axial strain was not applied to the strand by the 0.4% bending. In addition, the evaluated strain of the NbAl conductor is compared with those of NbSn conductors. There was an unexpected strain in the NbSn conductors but the one was not observed in the NbAl conductor. One of the explanations is higher rigidity of the NbAl strand. This shows that an NbAl conductor is suitable to the application to large magnets.