Upgrade and Commissioning of the SULTAN Facility to Host Quench Experiments on HTS High Current Conductors

High Temperature Superconductors (HTS) are promising materials for future fusion magnets. One of HTS conductors' main issues is the quench protection: the quench develops much slower than in LTS, delaying the quench detection by voltage monitoring and causing a massive temperature increase before detection. The Swiss Plasma Center (SPC), with the support of EUROFusion, has upgraded the SULTAN facility to test large current conductors during the whole quench evolution. The 100 kA superconducting transformer has been replaced by an 18 kA direct power supply, which allows sustaining the operating current in the sample during a quench. Five HTS conductors have been manufactured at SPC: they are sub-size of the HTS high-current cables designed by the group for an HTS high current high field cable proposed for EU-DEMO Central Solenoid (CS) hybrid magnet. Every conductor has a specific feature. The aim is to compare the quench behavior of the five conductors “parametrically”. The commissioning of the upgraded facility and the preliminary results of the measurements are presented in this work.