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Zhang Tong

The world’s biggest superconducting magnet for a nuclear fusion reactor has passed final tests as part of China’s CRAFT “artificial sun” project, eclipsing international performance benchmarks.
The assembly comprises two coils: a toroidal-field magnet that acts as a magnetic cage, and a central solenoid that serves as the igniter.
The results, achieved by researchers with the Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, clear a major engineering hurdle on the path to confining a plasma hotter than the sun’s core, state news agency Xinhua reported on Saturday.
The project – the Comprehensive Research Facility for Fusion Technology – aims to create a miniature sun at over 100 million degrees Celsius (over 180 million Fahrenheit) and trap it inside a doughnut-shaped metal cage to generate electricity.
The magnetic cage, known as the CRAFT toroidal field coil, is a core component of the reactor.
It uses a strong magnetic field to prevent the container of the miniature sun from melting as the plasma inside reaches hundreds of millions of degrees.

The magnetic field is like an invisible railway, guiding charged particles along prescribed paths and holding them safely away from the vessel walls, preventing erosion and structural damage from high-energy collisions.
At 21 metres (68.9 feet) long, 12 metres wide, and 3.3 metres high, the toroidal-field magnet weighs 582 tonnes.
It has 1.3 times the volume and triple the energy storage of its counterpart in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor in southern France, making it the largest such magnet ever built.
Wu Yu, a researcher with plasma institute told state broadcaster CCTV that “16 of these coils will eventually be assembled to form the complete magnetic field, each carrying 100 kiloamperes and generating 6.5 tesla at the centre”.
Institute director Song Yuntao said the coil took six years to complete and had the highest energy storage capacity of its type in the world.
Its speciality steel, insulation and superconducting wires are all made in China.


The igniter tested at the same time, is a high-temperature superconducting central solenoid coil. Its main roles are to induce and drive the plasma current and to dynamically adjust the plasma confinement configuration.
According to the Xinhua report, the coil’s test results were all world-leading.
“The central solenoid magnet operates under the most complex conditions of any magnet in the reactor, and its performance directly determines whether a fusion device can be successfully ignited and stably sustained,” institute deputy director Qin Jinggang said.
He added that the coil’s rated design current was 46.5kA, yet it passed testing at 60kA, or six times the capacity of China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) device, which has been running since 2006.


Song said the results reflected nearly 40 years of research, during which time the institute mastered technology from low- to high-temperature superconductivity. He described the magnet as “the world’s most advanced and essential for building future fusion reactors”.
China’s path to a superconducting tokamak began in the late 1970s, when the Soviet Union built the world’s first such device, the T-7.
Russia gave the T-7 to China and in 1994 converted it into the HT-7, becoming the fourth country – after Russia, France and Japan – to have the technology.
Then, in 2006, China completed EAST, the world’s first fully superconducting tokamak.
Fusion energy tops China’s to-do list in its present five-year plan.


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The device, part of the CRAFT artificial sun reactor, sets new international benchmark in push for clean energy


The device, part of the CRAFT artificial sun reactor, sets new international benchmark in push for clean energy.


China fires up world’s biggest superconducting magnet for nuclear fusion project

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The device, part of the CRAFT artificial sun reactor, sets new international benchmark in push for clean energy

The device, part of the CRAFT artificial sun reactor, sets new international benchmark in push for clean energy