Designing superconducting toroidal field windings for a fusion-driven actinide burner

The fusion-driven actinide burner is a tokamak fusion reactor which is designed to dispose of actinide wastes from fission reactors. If a fusion reactor is to operate economically, then the major magnet systems must be designed to be superconducting. The toroidal field coils utilized in the magnetic confinement of the plasma are expected to generate peak fields of approximately 9.2 Tesla. This high peak field necessitates that Nb3Sn conductors be utilized. The toroidal field coil is designed to have minimal bending stresses. Although the toroidal field windings carry primarily dc currents, the plasma charging/discharging system imposes ac fields on the windings which vary in magnitude and direction. The superconductor configurations to be utilized have been optimized to achieve low ac losses for the anticipated environment.