Test results of ITER conductors in the SULTAN facility

Bruzzone, P.*; Stepanov, B.*; Wesche, R.*; Mitchell, N.*; Devred, A.*; Nunoya, Yoshihiko; Tronza, V.*; Kim, K.*; Boutboul, T.*; Martovetsky, N.*; Yu, W.*

Starting March 2007, over 60 ITER cable-in-conduit conductors (CICC) have been tested in the SULTAN test facility, Switzerland. For the NbTi CICC, the results confirm the prediction from the strand data, which are made taking the peak field over the conductor cross section as operating field. All the NbTi samples passed the supplier qualification phase. For the NbSn CICC, the performance prediction is not straightforward because of the irreversible degradation caused by filament damage occurring during cyclic loading. At the first run of the test campaign, the performance of all the NbSn samples largely meets the target for all the tested samples. Contrary to the NbTi CICC case, the n-index of the transition is substantially lower than in the strands, providing evidence of irreversible degradation. The performance loss upon load cycles and thermal cycles has a broad range among the various conductor samples.