Development of REBCO Coated Conductors for Spherical Tokamak Fusion Reactors

托克马克能源公司是一家私营公司，致力于建造用于核聚变发电的紧凑型球形托克马克，该公司最近成功地在其ST 40装置中实现了1500万K的温度。这些装置成功的关键是开发由商用稀土钡铜氧化物（REBCO）涂层导体制成的高场和高温超导磁体。聚变是这些导体的一个新兴市场，其性能和制造工艺的改进可以大大提高未来反应堆的性能和经济性。诸如高磁场中的临界电流密度、各向异性临界电流、带构造、对中子照射的弹性以及制造工艺的速度和经济性等因素都可以针对这种新颖的应用进行定制。该项目的目的是探索新的方法，使REBCO涂层导体能够优化用于球形托卡马克，以加速商业核聚变反应堆的产生。

Tokamak Energy is a private company building compact spherical tokamaks for nuclear fusion power generation who recently succeeding in achieving a temperature of 15 million K in their ST40 device. Critical to the success of these devices is the development of high-field and temperature superconducting magnets made from commercial rare-earth barium copper oxide (REBCO) coated conductors. Fusion is an emerging market for these conductors, and improvements in their properties and manufacturing processes could drastically improve the performance and economics of future reactors. Factors such as critical current density in high magnetic fields, anisotropic critical current, tape construction, resilience against neutron irradiation and the speed and economy of manufacturing processes, may all be customised for this novel application. The aim of this project will be to explore new ways in which REBCO coated conductors can be optimised for use in spherical tokamaks, in order to accelerate the generation of commercial nuclear fusion reactors.