IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY 1

Quench Protection System for the Superconducting

Coil of the KSTAR Tokamak
Inho Song, Member, IEEE, Changho Choi, Member, IEEE, and Moohyun Cho, Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract—This paper presents two-stage high-power mechan-

ical-thyristor switches developed as 40-kA direct current (dc) cir-
cuit breakers for the superconducting coil energy dump system of
Korea superconducting Tokamak advanced research (KSTAR). An
advanced switching system used in the quench protection should
allow multishot mode of operation without maintenance and long
lifetime with arcless dc current commutation. The system is de-
signed to combine the advantages of the both mechanical and solid-
state power switches. The mechanical stage is to conduct dc cur-
rent for normal superconducting coil operation and the thyristor
stage is to provide fast arcless dc current interruption for quench
protection (QP). Compared with the all solid-state switches and
vacuum interrupters of equal capabilities the proposed switch is
much cheaper than the dc breakers and has lower power dissipa-
tion in current conducting state [1], [2]. Also, it is much faster than
the vacuum interrupters. The system is designed to break 40-kA Fig. 1. Schematic drawing (a) of the KSTAR PF and TF coils and (b) of magnet

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dc current within 200 ms. Also, KSTAR device, a configuration of
the energy dump system and coil power supplies are presented.
Index Terms—Korea superconducting Tokamak advanced
research (KSTAR), mechanical-thyristor switch, quench, super-
conducting coil.
E system assembly with vacuum vessel, ports, and cryostat in KSTAR device.

with forced flow supercritical helium. The dimension and ma-

terial of the conductors are summarized in [5].
The TF and PF magnets should be able to operate in the com-

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plicated electromagnetic environment. Under the operating con-
dition of KSTAR magnet system, the conductor temperature
I. INTRODUCTION
might rise over its current sharing the conductor temperature

T
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HE Korea superconducting Tokamak advanced research
might rise over its current sharing temperature due to high al-
ternating current (AC) losses and a part of the operating current
passes through the stablizer matrix where Joule heat is gener-
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(KSTAR) project is the major effort of the national fusion ated. Depending on the heat deposition and its removal by the
program of the Republic of Korea. Its aim is to develop a steady convection and conduction, the superconductor recovers to the
state capable advanced superconducting tokamak to establish superconducting state or increases its temperature over the crit-
a scientific and technological basis for an attractive fusion re- ical temperature to the normal state. Both coil systems require a
actor. The schematic drawing of KSTAR TF and PF coils and the energy dump system for quench protection (QP). Quench states
cross-sectional view and basic specifications of the KSTAR are that the superconductor reverts to the normal, resistive state, as
shown in Fig. 1 and Table I [3]. The KSTAR superconducting a result of excursions over limits of temperature, magnetic field
magnets (SC) consist of 16 toroidal field (TF) coils, four pairs and current density. Since, in general, the magnets have a low
of central solenoid (CS) coils, and three pairs of poloidal field enthalpy, in comparison with their stored magnetic energy, we
(PF) coils. All coils are arranged with up–down symmetry with should remove the magnetic energy from the coil as soon as pos-
respect to the equatorial plane [4]. The magnet system should be sible. When the quench occurred, we must interrupt the flow
designed to generate the magnetic field and flux swing to meet of current through a superconductor and dump the charged coil
the KSTAR operational goals. They should be stable mechani- energy into the resistor [6] and limit the hot spot temperature
cally, electrically, and thermally for normal operations and ab- in the conductor within acceptable coil voltages to the ground
normal operations such as plasma disruptions. The conductor of and across terminals. Energy dump system for QP, consists of
KSTAR coils is cable-in-conduit type conductor (CICC) cooled mainly dc circuit breaking system and energy dump resistor,
transfers the coil energy to a dump resistor and protects the su-
perconducting coils from overheating.
Manuscript received May 2, 2006; revised September 7, 2006. This work was
supported by the Korea Ministry of Science and Technology.
Energy dump system plays a very important role in super-
I. Song and C. Choi are with the POSCON Company, POSCON Research conducting coil protection. The discharge system shall provide
and Development Center, Korea University, Seoul 136-713, Korea (e-mail: ih- a given number of protection events overt the design lifetime of
[email protected]). the machine and be reliable. Therefore, dc circuit breaker is the
M. Cho is with the Department of Physics, POSTECH University, Pohang
790-784, Korea (e-mail: [email protected]). key of the QP system. A variety of dc circuit breakers are com-
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TASC.2006.887540 monly used in the industry. However, cost is a big problem when
1051-8223/$25.00 © 2007 IEEE
2 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of PF coil power supply system.

TABLE I
BASIC SPECIFICATIONS OF THE KSTAR per TF coil. The TF magnet system consists of series connected
16 coils, which powered by 40 kA ac/dc inverter power supply
system [9].

B. PF Magnet and Power Supply System

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it comes to finding conventional dc circuit breakers capable of
handling currents on the order of 40 kA dc. Mechanical circuit
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breakers have advantages of large on-state current and relia-
The PF magnet system consists of four pairs of CS
coils and three pairs of outer coils. The functions
of the PF magnets are to generate plasma current up to 2 MA
and to control the plasma position and shape. The conductors of
PF coils are also CICC made of Nb3Sn superconductor in In-
coloy 908 conduit for PF1 to PF5 coils, and NbTi in 316 LN for

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PF6 and seven coils. The designed peak currents are 25 kA and
bility but disadvantage of lifetime shots [7]. In case of 20 kA for Nb3Sn conductor and NbTi conductor, respectively.
semiconductor device, it has the merits of arcless switching and The PF conductor is made of 240 superconducting strands, 120
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long lifetime but increase of power capability is difficult. There-
fore, we combine the merits of mechanical switch and semicon-
ductor switch and develop the two-stage mechanical thyristor
copper strands, and six internal co-wound voltage taps inside a
square-shaped conduit, and is cooled with forced flow supercrit-
ical helium. The stored energy is from 19 MJ to 134 MJ. Upper
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switch (TMTS). In this paper, we report on the development and lower coils of PF1, PF2, and PF7 are connected in series
of a quench protection system composed of a vacuum circuit inside cryostat and other coils are operated with separately. The
breaker, thyristor switch, backup switch, and dump resistor for cooling conditions for CS and PF coils are similar to that of TF
KSTAR project. It is specially designed for the requirements of coils. The total helium mass flow rate in CS and PF coils is about
superconducting coils and capable of breaking and transferring 250 g/s [8]. The PF coil power supply (PS) system performs
a 40-kA current with excellent cost-performance and high reli- the following functions: 1) required coil voltages and currents
ability. supply for the plasma parameter control, 2) plasma initiation
using blip insertion and AC/dc converters, 3) QP, in order words
II. SUPERCONDUCTING MAGNET SYSTEM fast discharges of the PF coils, 4) using bypass thyristor protec-
tion of the coils against abnormal fault of power supply, and 5)
A. TF Magnet and Power Supply System isolation and ground the PF coils and bus line for safety. The
The TF coil system provides a field of 3.5 T at a plasma center, main PF coil power supply system is shown in Fig. 2. It consists
with a peak flux density at the TF coils of 7.5 T. The stored of 12 pulse thyristor converter system, blip system, quench pro-
energy is 500 MJ and number of windings is 56 turns/coil. TF tection system, safety connection system and dummy load [10].
coils use a Nb3Sn CICC with a 2.86-mm-thick Incoloy alloy 908
conduit. The Nb3Sn strand has KSTAR HP-III specifications in
which the critical current density is greater than 750 C. TF and PF Quench Detection
at 12 T, 4.2 K. The conductor is square-shaped CICC with 324 In order to achieve reliable quench detection, redundant sen-
Nb3Sn superconductor strands, 162 copper strands, and six in- sors are used, capable of very high signal–noise ratios [11].
ternal co-wound voltage tap sensors to detect quenches. The TF There are two types of internal sensors. The first is a co-wound
coil has a D-shape with two curvatures and a straight inboard insulated wire in the center of the final stages of each cable. The
leg. The total cold mass of TF magnet is about 150 ton. The second is a fiber optic temperature sensor, internally terminated
coolant of TF coils is supercritical helium with inlet temperature as a Michelson interferometer, co-wound through the center of
of 4.5 K and inlet pressure of 5 bar. The total mass flow rate in the cable. Both of these sensor concepts have been demonstrated
16 TF coils is about 300 g/s [8]. There are four cooling channels in the ITER QUELL experiment [12]. Flow meters will be used
SONG et al.: QUENCH PROTECTION SYSTEM FOR THE SUPERCONDUCTING COIL OF THE KSTAR TOKAMAK 3

Fig. 3. Simplified energy dump circuit for KSTAR superconducting coil test.

in each hydraulic inlet and outlet line. Advanced flow meter con- Fig. 4. Time-sequence of quench protection circuit.
cepts such as optical Fresnel drag [12] may be needed to cope
with rapid transients, high dynamic range, and clutter in the joint
areas.
controller is sent to the coil power supply system and simultane-

A. Design Requirements
COILS
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III. ENERGY DUMP SYSTEM FOR KSTAR SUPERCONDUCTING

The KSTAR superconducting coils consist of one toroidal

E ously a negative voltage is generated from thyristor rectifier PS
for disconnecting the PS from coils. After 10 ms, PS is turned
off and coil current is freewheeling through the thyristor PS and
bypass B1 (2). Signals for opening the M1 and for closing T1 are
sent to each switch component in order to bypass the coil cur-
rent from M1 to thyristor T1 without the arc (3). When the M1

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field and seven poloidal field coil sets with current ranging from current is completely turned off, a signal is sent to close T2 for
25 to 40 kA. The coils are mutually coupled with self-inductance commutating the current of switch T1 and T1 is turned off (4).
ranging from 59.6 to 794 mH. Each coil is excited by its own coil T2 current commutates the current T1 and ensures the recovery
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power supply system. When quench is occurred, each coil cur-
rent must be transferred to the dump resistor within 200 ms (only
energy dump system delay time, in KSTAR quench detection
time of thyristor T1. Finally, the coil current is transferred to
the dump resistor [13]. The coil current thereupon decays with
a fixed time constant . Most of the magnetic energy
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system delay time shows maximum 6 s) and decays rapidly with is deposited in the discharge resistor Dump R through B1. How-
a time constant of 7 s of TF coil and 4 s of PF coils. An advanced ever, a small amount of the coil energy is also dissipated in the
switching system is needed in the quench protection system, passive structure (vacuum vessel) because of its magnetic cou-
which allows high reliability, use of industrially proven compo- pling with the coils. The pyrobreaker, which consists of vacuum
nents, multishot operation without maintenance, long lifetime circuit breaker VCB and small fuse, is especially installed for
with arcless dc current commutation, and low costs. malfunction of two-stage mechanical-thyristor switch system.
The switching system is designed to combine the advantages We monitor the current and voltage waveforms of M1, T1, T2,
of the both mechanical and thyristor switches. The mechanical and dump and if each component is not operated we start the
stage is to conduct dc current for normal superconducting pyrobreaker.
coil operation and the thyristor stage is to provide fast arcless Each PF power supply has own EPICS controller as a local
dc current interruption for quench protection. Fig. 3 shows control system. EPICS controller has four physical communi-
the schematic diagram of energy dump circuit for quench cation layers, Gigabit Ethernet for low-speed communication
protection, which consists of mechanical switch M1, bypass such as system status, real time network for high-speed com-
thyristor switch T1, bypass switch B1 (mechanical and thyristor munication such as current or voltage reference, timing network
switches), and commutation circuit ( , , and T2). Pyrobreaker for synchronization, and interlock network for safety and QP.
is installed as backup switch for malfunction of TMTS. The KSTAR plasma control system, timing system, diagnostic
TMTS interrupts the current flowing through and diverts system, and data analysis and monitoring system share this
the magnet current in the discharge resistor. We use series layer. QP signal comes from the QP detection system, which
connected TMTS and pyrobreaker to increase the operation calculates coil voltage tap signals and generates the analog
reliability. The pyrobreaker will only operate if TMTS fails. signal of TF and PF QP. Because of the expensive supercon-
ducting coils, the QP system shall be reliable. In addition to
B. Quench Protection Circuit Operation the redundancy of TMTS, QP detection system consists of
The time-sequence diagram in Fig. 4 describes the energy two parts: one is the controller hardware realized by electronic
dump circuit operation. When initiating the energy dump at time circuits; the other is the controller software realized by a power
, (1) the quench protection signal from quench detection supply controller, which monitors the voltage and current
4 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY

signals. Up to the QP command, the quench signals are sent to

the QP controller and PS controller.

C. Main Circuit Components

When developing the mechanical switch M1, we consider the

dc current conducting rating and total operation time, which in-
cludes the delay time and breaking time. High-speed dc breaker
is developed as a mechanical switch, which has large current
and voltage ratings, low delay time, and high-speed operation.
For fast breaking operation, we adopt the high-speed air-spring
activated triggering system. It has the specification as follows:
short time break current of 40 kA, rated voltage of 8 kV, rated
current 10 kA, contact resistance of 10 , make time of 500 Fig. 5. (a) 10-kA mechanical high-speed dc breaker and (b) trigger signal and
voltage waveforms of high-speed dc breaker (10 ms/div.).
ms and total operation time of 30 ms. The faster the mechan-
ical switch operation time we have, the smaller current rating
thyristor T1 is required. For bypass circuit current and commu-
tation of thyristor T1, ABB 5STP33L2800 thyristors are used. B. Current Breaking Tests
It has large nonrepetitive current rating of 60 kA at 10 ms, so
we can use it as short time bypass switch.
The discharge resistor must be able to absorb the stored en- The test result of 5 kA quench protection was shown in Fig.
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ergy of the coil. In the design, two aspects have been consid-
ered. The initial resistance of the discharge resistor determines
the commutation voltage of the secondary commutation device.
From this point of view, the initial resistance should be as low as
possible. On the other hand, fast discharge is needed to protect
the coils and calls for an average resistance during the discharge
E 6 at the condition of load short. Bypass thyristor current, QP
system voltage, dummy resistor current, and QP start signal
were shown. The total quench protection operation time is about
80 ms and if the ON time of thyristor T1 were reduced that is
related with the breaking time of M1, we can reduce the total
operation time. We cannot find arc voltages at the QP system.

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of not less than 4 s and 8 s. The best solution would be a time To keep the hot-spot-temperature below 125 K and not to ex-
dependent resistor. This time dependence can be achieved using ceed a maximum voltage of 6 kV across the coil terminals, the
time constant for the shut down has to be below 8 s for TF
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the increase of the resistance due to the temperature increase
from the energy dissipation in the resistor. Therefore, a resistor
material with a high temperature coefficient and a wide oper-
and 4 s for PF. Related to this value, the delay time between
quench detection and the start of the current ramp down has to
be as short as possible. The time for detecting the quench is
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ating temperature range was searched. Considering cost-perfor-
mance ratio, the stainless steel was selected. A resistor built expected to happen within several hundreds milliseconds as de-
from stainless steel would show practically very low resistivity ducted from the test results of the background field coil, named
increase in the operating temperature range but would result in BKG coil, which is the both prototypical of CS coils and suit-
a low-cost design. In the QP system of the PF coils, the resistor able as a facility for testing full-scale conductors to high field
is made of stainless steel plates connected in reverse series to and high current. Another delay results from the time for acti-
minimize the stray inductance of resistor. vating the protection system and switching over to current ramp-
down. Taking into account the maximum temperature in the su-
perconducting coil after quench, the time constant of current
decay and an expected delay for the quench detection it follows
IV. TEST RESULTS
that the switching time to current ramp down must not exceed
200 ms. This hard requirement for the protection system there-
A. High-Speed dc Breaker Tests fore ranks with highest priority. In case of 40 kA quench pro-
tection system, we used the three parallel-connected thyristor
Fig. 5(a) and (b) shows the photograph of 10-kA high-speed switch (ABB 33L2800) and 25 kA QP system, two thyristors
dc breaker and the functional test result of high-speed dc were applied.
breaker. In Fig. 5(b), waveform 1 shows the trigger signal, The test of quench protection system was conducted with su-
which was sent to the high speed dc breaker and waveform 2 perconducting coil at the superconductor test facility. The su-
shows the voltage signal of it. We measured the total operation perconductor inductance value is about 50 mH, which is one
time of high-speed dc breaker, which is about 25 ms. Usually, set of the 16 toroidal field coil sets. And dump resistor value
the delay time and breaking time of VCB is above 60 ms. Using is about 10 . Fig. 7(a) and (b) comes from the human–ma-
the air-spring activated triggering circuit, we can get high speed chine interface (HMI) display of TF coil power supply local
operation time. From the 40 kA test results, there was no arc host console. The sampling time of HMI and data acquisition
between the contacts of high-speed dc breaker. Therefore, the system were 1 ms. Each coil power supply system has own local
arc chute of high speed dc breaker is revised and the size of controller, namely VME [AUTHOR: PLEASE DE-
breaker will be reduced. FINE VME] control system. VME controller is connected
SONG et al.: QUENCH PROTECTION SYSTEM FOR THE SUPERCONDUCTING COIL OF THE KSTAR TOKAMAK 5

is to provide fast arcless dc current interruption for quench pro-

tection. Compared with the all solid-state switches and vacuum
interrupters with equal capabilities the proposed switch is much
cheaper than the dc breakers and has lower power dissipation in
conduction state. Also, it is much faster than the vacuum inter-
rupters [14], [15].
KSTAR, a superconducting fusion experiment, is presently
under construction at the Taejon of National Fusion Research
Center, Korea. The installation will be completed until 2007 and
first plasma of KSTAR will be launched on August 2008.

REFERENCES
[1] V. Kuchinski et al., “High-power fast switches,” in Proc. Int. Power
Electron. Conf., 1995, pp. 899–903.
Fig. 6. Test result of 5 kA quench protection operation (20 ms/div.). Waveform [2] I. Benfatto et al., “dc breaking tests up to 55 kA in a single vacuum
1, 2, 3, and 4 show the current of bypass thyristor T1, the voltage of dump R, interrupter,” IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 1372–1376, Oct.
the dump resistor current, and QP detection system signal. 1988.
[3] G. S. Lee et al., “The KSTAR project: An advanced steady state su-
perconducting tokamak experiment,” Nucl. Fusion, vol. 40, no. 3, pp.
575–582, 2000.
[4] Y. K. Oh et al., “KSTAR magnet structure design,” IEEE Trans. Appl.
Superconduct., vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 2066–2069, Mar. 2001.
[5] B. S. Lim et al., “Fabrication of the KSTAR superconducting CICC,”

Pr EE IEEE Trans. Appl. Superconduct., vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 591–594, Mar.
2002.
[6] C. Neumeyer, Fast discharge options for tokamak physics experiment
toroidal field & poloidal field superconducting magnets 40-9308270
PPPL [AUTHOR: LOCATION? DATE?]
[7] R. Heller and W. Maurer, the W7-X team, “The results for an advanced
conductor for the Wendelstein 7-X magnet system,” IEEE Trans. Appl.
Superconduct., vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 614–617, Mar. 2000.
.

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Fig. 7. (a) Coil current and (b) voltage waveforms of 27 kA quench protection [8] J. H. Schultz et al., “The KSTAR superconducting magnet system,”
test from HMI display of coil power supply control and data acquisition system. Fusion Eng., vol. 2, pp. 645–648, 1997.
[9] I. H. Song et al., “The 40 kA dc power supply for a KSTAR toroidal
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to local host console by Gigabit Ethernet and to data acquisi-
field superconductor coil,” IEEE Trans. Industry Appl., submitted for
publication.
[10] S. Tanahashi, Power Supply for Superconducting Coils of the Large
Helical Device NIFS-99030212 [AUTHOR: LOCA-
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tion system by hardwired connection. Superconducting coil cur-
rent decays with the time constant L/R. Each coil power supply
TION? DATE?] .
[11] A. Anghel et al., The quench experiment on long length: QUELL: Final
system has own dummy resistor value and maximum quench report Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzer-
voltage is different. The time limit for the whole sequence is land, Rep. EPFL/CRPP -51697-1, May 1997.
[12] R. T. de Carvalho and J. Blake, “Slow-flow measurements and fluid
about 200 ms including the times for the possible firing of the dynamics analysis using the Fresnel drag effect,” Appl. Optics, vol. 33,
pyrobreaker as set up in the technical specification. In the final no. 25, pp. 6073–6078, 1994.
test, an overall delay time of the QP protection system of 170 ms [13] N. Mohan, T. M. Underland, and W. P. Robbins, Power Elec-
tronics: Converters, Applications, and Design, 2nd ed. New York:
was measured, giving an extra margin of 30 ms. The specified
failure rate test of QP system will be conducted in this year.
Wiley [AUTHOR: YEAR?] .
[14] N. A. Chernoplekov, “The system and test results for the Tokamak T-15
magnet,” Fusion Eng. Design, vol. 20, pp. 55–63, 1993.
V. CONCLUSION
The superconducting coils of KSTAR require very reliable
protection against the coil quench. Further requirements on the Inho Song (M’01) was born in Seoul, South Korea,
protection system are a maximum reaction time of 200 ms for on March 30, 1971. He received the B.S. and M.S. de-
commutating the coil current to dump after quench detection, grees from the Department of Electrical Engineering,
Hanyang University, Korea in 1995 and 1997, respec-
maximum 6 kV across the coils during discharge and a discharge tively, and the Ph.D. degree from the Tokyo Institute
time constant of less than 8 s for TF coil and 4 s for PF coils. A of Technology, Japan, in 2005.
quench protection circuit has been developed that can be used Since 1997, [AUTHOR: COR-
on the KSTAR superconducting coils. This circuit system is ca- RECT?] he has been with the POSCON
pable of transferring 40 kA of dc current to a dump resistor. Research and Development Center, Seoul, Korea, as
a Researcher. During the construction of KSTAR,
The circuit layout is simple and ensuring high overall reliability. he developed the 25-kA superconducting coil power
The used of industrially proven components increases the relia- supply, high-voltage switch, and-high precision current sensor. His research
bility, reduces the costs and avoids additional development. Pro- interests include basic plasma physics experiment, high-power supply system,
pulsed power technology, and their industrial applications.
posed two-stage mechanical-thyristor switch system is to con- Dr. Song is a member of the Korea Institute of Electrical Engineering and the
duct dc current for normal superconducting coil operation and Korea Institute of Power Electronics.
6 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY

Changho Choi (M’97) was born in Seoul, South Moohyun Cho (M’86-SM’91) was born in Gyunbuk,
Korea, on October 18, 1956. He received the B.S. South Korea, on October 1, 1954. He received the
degree from Aju University, in 1979, the M.S. degree B.S. and M.S degrees from the Department of
from the Department of Electrical Engineering, Nuclear Engineering of Seoul National University,
Seoul National University, in 1984, and the Ph.D. Korea, in 1977 and 1979, respectively, and the Ph.D.
degree from the Hanyang University, in 2000. degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
Since 1991, he has been with the POSCON Com- in 1988.
pany, Korea, as the Director, where he actively de- Since 1989, he has been a faculty member of
veloped in the EIC system for steel manufacturing, the Department of Physics, Pohang University of
high-power supplies, energy saving inverter system, Science and Technology (POSTECH), Gyunbuk,
accelerator, and new energy system. His research in- Korea, where he actively participated in the con-
terests include high-voltage inverter, pulsed power system, and their industrial struction of 2-Gev electron linear accelerator, especially the construction of the
applications. 80-MW pulsed klystron system. Currently, he is one of the active participants
Dr. Choi is a member of the Korea Institute of Power Electronics, Sigma Xi, for the KSTAR project in Korea. His research interests include basic plasma
and the Korea Institute of Electrical Engineers. He is an IEEE IAS reviewer. physics experiment, high-power microwave system, pulsed technology, and
their industrial applications.
Prof. Cho is a member of the Korean Physical Society, the Korean accelerator
and Plasma Research association, and the American Physical Society.

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