Optimal Preliminary Design of Superconducting Bending Magnets With Active Shielding Using Topology Optimization Method

This paper presents a topology optimization-based method for optimally designing magnets. Compared to other optimization approaches for which the final solution is strongly conditioned by the initial choice of the designer, it opens the field of solutions without any a priori on the topology or the geometry of the magnet. This method is applied to the preliminary design of a 90° bending superconducting magnet with active shielding, considering the superconductor quantity as objective function and the magnetic field distribution as constraint. In order to meet manufacturability specifications, additional constraints ensure that the solutions are exclusively made of planar coils. The results highlight that the optimal distribution of superconductors on the magnet cross-section are recurrent whatever the value of design parameters like magnet radius or the current density.