Recently, the Ministry of Education issued "The Award of the Outstanding Science Research Achievements in Institutions of Higher Learning in 2019", and our college project named “Key Methodologies of Mechanics and Applications for Superconducting Magnet Design and Manufactures”won the first prize！
Introduction of awarded project：
Award categories and grades：Technological invention award first prize
Project name: Key Methodologies of Mechanics and Applications for Superconducting Magnet Design and Manufacture
Prize winner: Zhou Youhe, Wang Xingzhe, Zhang Xingyi, Guan Mingzhi, Wu Wei, Ma Lizhen
Project implementation unit: Lanzhou University; Institute of modern physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Figure: The versatile test facility capable of providing cryogenic-electro-magnetic multifield and controlling.
The project and the related achievements belong to the electromagneto-solid mechanics research field.
Superconducting magnets are the basis of various large scientific and engineering devices to achieve their high performance, which has been one of the new strategic technology areas that attracted higher concerns by most developed countries. The mechanics investigations involved such problems have been recognized as the scientific bottlenecks and big challenge for the design and production of superconducting magnets.
The team focused on the challenge and various issues, such as measurement technologies at the extreme cryogenic and enclosed environment, strong nonlinearities arisen from multifield couplings, significant degenerations of superconductivity by strain, and so on, some effective breakthroughs were achieved as follows.
This project independently developed and built a versatile test facility capable of providing cryogenic-electro-magnetic multifield and controlling, as well the field-dependent and mechanical property measurements of superconducting wires/tapes, which is the first one in the international scientific instruments.
New technology for preparing the superconducting strip joint was suggested to manufacture the joint with the lowest resistance and the highest strength.
A new method based on cryogenic strain gauge with high-precision measurement is developed for effectively detecting quench of superconductors, and a new criterion is consequently proposed.
An effective theoretical and analysis method of multifield coupling for nonlinear mechanics of superconducting magnets is established aiming at their design and evaluation.
The achievement of these inventions and innovations directly has contributed to the successful preparation of more than 100 superconducting magnets, including exports to the United States. In such a way and our endeavors, the mechanical design and experimental measurement for superconducting magnets developed in China have achieveda change from "0" to "1". It will provide strong support to independently build reactors of thermonuclear fusion energy by magnetic confinement in China in the future.