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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2019

Calibration technique for rotating PCB coil magnetic field sensors

A high-accuracy calibration of inductive coil sensors based on Printed Circuit Board (PCB), commonly used in rotating coil field measurements of particle accelerator magnets, is presented. The amplitude and phase of signals with and without main field suppression are compared in order to simultaneously determine both the PCB rotation radius and the transverse offset of its plane from rotation center. The accuracy of planar wire placement on the PCB boards is exploited to create loops highly precise in area which rotate at different radii. Such an area reproducibility and circuit geometry allow the suppression of the fundamental field, enabling the calibration, as well as improving signal resolution and mitigating vibration effects. Lastly, the calibration can be performed dynamically, in-situ during measurements. Calibration accuracy is validated experimentally by referencing the PCB positions with a Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM).

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Simulations of the new DARHT Axis-II bucking coil magnetic field and effects

Flash radiography of hydrodynamic experiments driven by high explosives is a well-known diagnostic technique in use at many laboratories. The Dual-Axis Radiography for Hydrodynamic Testing (DARHT) facility at Los Alamos was developed for flash radiography of large hydrodynamic experiments. Two linear induction accelerators (LIAs) produce the bremsstrahlung radiographic source spots for orthogonal views of each experiment (“hydrotest”). The 2-kA, 20-MeV Axis-I LIA creates a single 60-ns radiography pulse. For time resolution of the hydrotest dynamics, the 1.7-kA, 16.5-MeV Axis-II LIA creates up to four radiography pulses by slicing them out of a longer pulse that has a 1.6-µs flattop. Both axes now routinely produce radiographic source spot sizes having full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) less than 1 mm.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2016

A simple model for estimating a magnetic field in laser-driven coils

Magnetic field generation by laser-driven coils is a promising way of magnetizing plasma in laboratory high-energy-density plasma experiments. A typical configuration consists of two electrodes—one electrode is irradiated with a high-intensity laser beam and another electrode collects charged particles from the expanding plasma. The two electrodes are separated by a narrow gap forming a capacitor-like configuration and are connected with a conducting wire-coil. The charge-separation in the expanding plasma builds up a potential difference between the electrodes that drives the electrical current in the coil. A magnetic field of tens to hundreds of Teslas generated inside the coil has been reported. This paper presents a simple model that estimates the magnetic field using simple assumptions. Lastly, the results are compared with the published experimental data.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
NASA NTRS1965

Magnetic field test coils are temperature compensated

Magnetic field test coils with auxiliary winding wound opposite to main coil winding eliminates changes in field configurations due to temperature changes. The auxiliary coil is made with aluminum wire.

Source record↗
DOE OSTI2022

Using additive manufacturing technologies in high-field accelerator magnet coils

Recent advances with additive manufacturing (AM) technologies using various materials allow them to be considered for the manufacture of precise and complicated metal parts of the magnet coils of high field accelerator magnets from aluminum bronze, titanium alloy, stainless steel, etc. The 3D printing technology is also being used to fabricate prototype models of real parts to test and optimize their geometry. This paper discusses the designs of the complex stress-management coil parts developed at Fermilab, their fabrication using AM technologies, and quality control methods and results.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Toroidal magnetic field ripple in the presence of misaligned toroidal field coils on the COMPASS-U tokamak

Homogeneity of the toroidal magnetic field is a critical aspect of the tokamak fusion device. It is affected by the design of toroidal magnetic field coils and their manufacturing and assembly misalignments. The magnetic field of the COMPASS-U project is analysed using toroidal field ripple quantity. Here ANSYS modelling of bitter-plate-designed toroidal field coils is performed to prepare an accurate simplistic representation of the coils using a virtual current line. Toroidal field ripple is analysed using a Gaussian distribution of possible misalignments. The worst-case toroidal field ripple corresponding to the technical drawings only slightly exceeds the chosen limit of 0.5%.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2011

LDRD final report on confinement of cluster fusion plasmas with magnetic fields.

Two versions of a current driver for single-turn, single-use 1-cm diameter magnetic field coils have been built and tested at the Sandia National Laboratories for use with cluster fusion experiments at the University of Texas in Austin. These coils are used to provide axial magnetic fields to slow radial loss of electrons from laser-produced deuterium plasmas. Typical peak field strength achievable for the two-capacitor system is 50 T, and 200 T for the ten-capacitor system. Current rise time for both systems is about 1.7 {mu}s, with peak current of 500 kA and 2 MA, respectively. Because the coil must be brought to the laser, the driver needs to be portable and drive currents in vacuum. The drivers are complete but laser-plasma experiments are still in progress. Therefore, in this report, we focus on system design, initial tests, and performance characteristics of the two-capacitor and ten-capacitors systems. The questions of whether a 200 T magnetic field can retard the breakup of a cluster-fusion plasma, and whether this field can enhance neutron production have not yet been answered. However, tools have been developed that will enable producing the magnetic fields needed to answer these questions. These are a two-capacitor, 400-kA system that was delivered to the University of Texas in 2010, and a 2-MA ten-capacitor system delivered this year. The first system allowed initial testing, and the second system will be able to produce the 200 T magnetic fields needed for cluster fusion experiments with a petawatt laser. The prototype 400-kA magnetic field driver system was designed and built to test the design concept for the system, and to verify that a portable driver system could be built that delivers current to a magnetic field coil in vacuum. This system was built copying a design from a fixed-facility, high-field machine at LANL, but made to be portable and to use a Z-machine-like vacuum insulator and vacuum transmission line. This system was sent to the University of Texas in Austin where magnetic fields up to 50 T have been produced in vacuum. Peak charge voltage and current for this system have been 100 kV and 490 kA. It was used this last year to verify injection of deuterium and surrogate clusters into these small, single-turn coils without shorting the coil. Initial test confirmed the need to insulate the inner surface of the coil, which requires that the clusters must be injected through small holes in an insulator. Tests with a low power laser confirmed that it is possible to inject clusters into the magnetic field coils through these holes without destroying the clusters. The university team also learned the necessity of maintaining good vacuum to avoid insulator, transmission line, and coil shorting. A 200-T, 2 MA system was also constructed using the experience from the first design to make the pulsed-power system more robust. This machine is a copy of the prototype design, but with ten 100-kV capacitors versus the two used in the prototype. It has additional inductance in the switch/capacitor unit to avoid breakdown seen in the prototype design. It also has slightly more inductance at the cable connection to the vacuum chamber. With this design we have been able to demonstrate 1 MA current into a 1 cm diameter coil with the vacuum chamber at air pressure. Circuit code simulations, including the additional inductance with the new design, agree well with the measured current at a charge voltage of 40 kV with a short circuit load, and at 50 kV with a coil. The code also predicts that with a charge voltage of 97 kV we will be able to get 2 MA into a 1 cm diameter coil, which will be sufficient for 200 T fields. Smaller diameter or multiple-turn coils will be able to achieve even higher fields, or be able to achieve 200-T fields with lower charge voltage. Work is now proceeding at the university under separate funding to verify operation at the 2-MA level, and to address issues of debris mitigation, measurement of the magnetic field, and operation in vacuum. We anticipate operation at full current with single-turn, magnetic field coils this fall, with 200 T experiments on the Texas Petawatt laser in the spring of 2012.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
NASA NTRS1964

Large Magnetic Environments

Large magnetic field coils to cancel earth magnetic field - magnetic properties of Pegasus satellite

PEGASUS SATELLITE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Precise stellarator quasi-symmetry can be achieved with electromagnetic coils

Magnetic fields with quasi-symmetry are known to provide good confinement of charged particles and plasmas, but the extent to which quasi-symmetry can be achieved in practice has remained an open question. Recent work [M. Landreman and E. Paul, Phys. Rev. Lett. 128, 035001, 2022] reports the discovery of toroidal magnetic fields that are quasi-symmetric to orders-of-magnitude higher precision than previously known fields. We show that these fields can be accurately produced using electromagnetic coils of only moderate engineering complexity, that is, coils that have low curvature and that are sufficiently separated from each other. Our results demonstrate that these new quasi-symmetric fields are relevant for applications requiring the confinement of energetic charged particles for long time scales, such as nuclear fusion. The coils’ length plays an important role for how well the quasi-symmetric fields can be approximated. For the longest coil set considered and a mean field strength of 1 T, the departure from quasi-symmetry is of the order of Earth’s magnetic field. Additionally, we find that magnetic surfaces extend far outside the plasma boundary used by Landreman and Paul, providing confinement far from the core. Simulations confirm that the magnetic fields generated by the new coils confine particles with high kinetic energy substantially longer than previously known coil configurations. In particular, when scaled to a reactor, the best found configuration loses only 0.04% of energetic particles born at midradius when following guiding center trajectories for 200 ms.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2025

Numerical investigation of magneto-inertial fusion targets magnetized by dynamic enforcement of helical current flow

Magnetized Liner Inertial Fusion (MagLIF) targets require premagnetization to reduce thermal conduction losses from the laser-heated fuel to the liner material during implosion. MagLIF targets are typically magnetized by external magnetic field coils which are technologically limited to providing <20 T axial magnetic fields in the fusion fuel. We present a novel target design, AutoMag-D, which employs dynamic enforcement of helical current in the liner, resulting in >20 T axial magnetic field in the fuel region prior to implosion without the need of external magnetic field coils. These self-magnetizing liners are made of helically oriented alternating electrically conductive material and electrically insulating material surrounded by a thin, conductive outer radial layer. As the liner is pulsed with a ∼ 20 MA, ∼ 100 ns rise time drive current from Z, the outer layer of conductive material is shocked and intensely Joule heated, causing it to melt, vaporize, and turn to plasma. This allows the magnetic drive field to diffuse radially inward which dynamically enforces current flow in the helical conduction paths in the liner and produces axial magnetic field in the fuel region prior to implosion of the inner liner surface. AutoMag-D liner designs do not require dielectric breakdown of electrically insulating material (as in traditional auto-magnetizing helical liners) and do not require helical return current geometries (as in dynamic screw pinches). We present results from three-dimensional radiation-magnetohydrodynamic simulations of MagLIF implosions employing AutoMag-D liner designs. Simulated AutoMag-D targets demonstrate improved fuel conditions and thermonuclear yield compared to traditional MagLIF.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2011

Boost of plasma current with active magnetic field shaping coils in rotamak discharges

A set of magnetic shaping coils is installed on the Prairie View (PV) rotamak for the study of active plasma shape control in the regimes with and without toroidal field (TF). In the spherical tokamak regime (with TF), plasma current I{sub p} can be boosted by 200% when all five shaping coils (connected in series) are energized. The enhancement of current drive efficiency is mainly attributed to the radial compression and the substantially axial extension of the plasma column; this in turn improves the impedance matching and thus increases antenna input power. In the field-reversed configuration (without TF), plasma current can be boosted by 100% when one middle coil is used; the appearance of radial shift mode limits the achievable value of I{sub p}. The experiments clearly demonstrate that the plasma shape control plays a role in effectively driving plasma current in rotamaks.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
NASA NTRS2001

High-Power Magnetoplasmadynamic Thruster Being Developed

High-power electromagnetic thrusters have been proposed as primary in-space propulsion options for several of the bold new interplanetary and deep space missions envisioned by the Human Exploration and Development of Space (HEDS) Strategic Enterprise. As the lead center for electric propulsion, the NASA Glenn Research Center is actively involved in the design, development, and testing of high-power electromagnetic technologies to meet these demanding mission requirements. One concept of particular interest is the magnetoplasmadynamic (MPD) thruster, shown schematically in the preceding figure. In its basic form, the MPD thruster consists of a central cathode surrounded by a concentric cylindrical anode. A high-current arc is struck between the anode and cathode, which ionizes and accelerates a gas (plasma) propellant. In the self-field version of the thruster, an azimuthal magnetic field generated by the current returning through the cathode interacts with the radial discharge current flowing through the plasma to produce an axial electromagnetic body force, providing thrust. In applied field-versions of the thruster, a magnetic field coil surrounding the anode is used to provide additional radial and axial magnetic fields that can help stabilize and accelerate the plasma propellant. The following figure shows an experimental megawatt-class MPD thruster developed at Glenn. The MPD thruster is fitted inside a magnetic field coil, which in turn is mounted on a thrust stand supported by thin metal flexures. A calibrated position transducer is used to determine the force provided by the thruster as a function of thrust stand displacement. Power to the thruster is supplied by a 250-kJ capacitor bank, which provides up to 30- MW to the thruster for a period of 2 msec. This short period of time is sufficient to establish thruster performance similar to steady-state operation, and it allows a number of thruster designs to be quickly and economically evaluated. In concert with this experimental research, Glenn is also developing and using advanced numerical simulations to predict the performance of self-field and applied-field MPD thrusters.

LaPointe, Michael R.↗