Estimation of Toroidal Field Coil Stresses from Magnetic Loads in FER and NET by Analytic Methods

A comparison of structural efficiency of the toroidal field (TF) coils between the Next European Torus (NET) and the Fusion Experimental Reactor (FER) machines was made. The effectiveness of their winding packs to help react loads incurred from in-plane and out-of-plane electromagnetic forces was estimated. Only analytic techniques, including mechanics of materials methods and composite mixture rules, were used. The results for NET compared well with the fairly detailed two-dimensional (2-D) and three-dimensional (3-D) finite element analysis (FEA) performed by the NET team. Similar FEAs of the Advanced Option C (ACS) version of FER have not been done, but the analytic results should be reasonable. The methodology used has been successfully programmed for use in reactor systems codes. Research sponsored by the Office of Fusion Energy, U.S. Department of Energy, under contract DE-AC05-84OR21400 with Martin Marietta Energy Systems, Incorporated.