Simulation of electric arc with hysteresis during discharge of a fusion superconducting magnet system

Simulation of an internal voltage induced arc strike and attendant voltage-current hysteresis characteristics in an FED/INTOR scale superconducting magnet and circuit protection system during discharge was performed. To begin, an analytical solution was used to investigate system response for an internally shorted magnet and simplified circuit protection system during magnet discharge. The short produced a current split within the magnet resulting in a transformer like mutual inductance effect. Thus, the coupling coefficient was introduced in the equations to be physically realistic and to prevent degeneration of the associated eigenvalue problem. The effects of varying short resistance, dump resistance, and number of coil turns shorted are presented. This led to simulation of an arc strike, including hysteresis effects, which is then compared to the usual constant resistance used to simulate magnet shorts. Tracking of arc characteristics was made possible through specially developed multiple tripping capabilities recently incorporated into MSCAP (Magnet Systems Circuitry Analysis Program) for safety and instrumentation control simulation.