Electrical insulation testing for ITER fusion tokamak
The uniqueness of the ITER fusion project drives purpose and scope here to fulfil (functional) Procurement Arrangement (PA) requirements for the Central Solenoid (CS) and Correction Coil (CC) magnets' electrical insulation [1–3]; as used and undertaken for covering high voltage testing operations of the magnet coil winding pack (WP) vacuum pressure insulation (VPI) beam qualification, followed in 2016 by start of magnets series production in the USA and China [1, 2]. Useful to be considered common state-of-the-art electrical power components testing practices [3, 4] are presented here as performed to verify that the integrity and insulation of the various components are within acceptable limits during different phases of the fabrication and to certify acceptance on delivery of the complete coils. Initial measurement plans were complemented into electrical tests with typical high voltage engineering implemented measures as a pre-requisite to successfully validate produced results. The above permitted the first quantitative validation of the obtained final production, including life time behavior.