Eminent expert in magnet technology

The ITER Magnet Division recently welcomed an eminent newcomer: the internationally known expert on superconducting applications, Yanfang Bi, from the Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP) in Hefei, China.

As Deputy Engineer-General, Professor Bi was in charge of the design for the superconductors and the cryogenic system of the EAST tokamak. He also had responsibility for the research and development conducted in China on the 45/68 kA high temperature superconductor (HTS) current leads for the ITER Project. HTS current leads are necessary to transmit high power currents from power supplies, operating at room temperature, to the superconducting coils, operating near absolute freezing point—and this with minimum heat loss. A prototype of these 68 kA HTS leads was successfully tested at ASIPP last December.

Besides his extensive design work and research on EAST, Yanfang Bi spent two and a half years in Hamburg, Germany, where he conducted measurements on the superconducting magnets at HERA, the accelerator at the DESY laboratory. He also led the effort to design and build the cryogenic system for the HT-7 tokamak, a superconducting fusion device that was rebuilt from the Russian T-7, formerly operated at the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow, and which served as a reliable experimental device for Chinese scientists for more than 14 years.

Professor Bi will be working as an expert consultant for ITER. "We feel honoured to have the support of the ASIPP cryogenic expert who significantly contributed to the success of the EAST tokamak," said Arnaud Devred, Section Leader for ITER's superconducting magnets, on the occasion of Professor Bi's arrival in Cadarache last week.