Direct measurement of the AC loss of an ITER relevant coil

In the ENEA Frascati Laboratory, an ITER relevant coil is being tested in pulsed regime. One item of the testing program is the search for possible ramp rate limitations. The range explored (up to 3.2 T/s) covers amply the ITER Central Solenoid operating regime (0.5–1 T/s). An interesting outcome of these tests is that repeated run sets, performed in similar conditions, show an increasing value of the ramp rate that produces a quench. This behaviour is attributed to a continuous decrease of the value of the AC loss constant nτ, due to the increase of the cable transversal resistivity. An explanation on the basis of a ‘classical' training was also considered, but for a number of reasons reported in the paper, it was discarded. Direct measurements of the AC loss on the whole coil confirm that the original value of nτ (140 ms), as measured on a ‘virgin' piece of conductor, has gone below 40 ms. The measurements are made difficult by the presence of a heavy mechanical structure and of a background coil. The techniques applied and the results are reported in detail.