KitemanSA wrote:Aero wrote: That brings up questions. The connecting "Nubs" are used to maintain current flow in the ambient temperature electro-magnet coils. That is, interconnection insures that there is a single current flowing through all of the coils of the Magrid. It seems that the requirement is that the current in each coil of the Magrid must be equal or nearly so.
First question, "What is the tolerance on magnetic field variation in the coils of the Magrid?"
Second question, "Is this interconnecting design absolutely required for ambient temperature electro-magnets?"
Third question, "Are Nubs connecting the coils necessary for a superconducting magrid?"
Fourth question why are we talking nubs? The magnetically protected replacement for them have already been proposed.
And by the way, the nubs weren't to balance the current but to provide it thru the whole system and to support the other 5 coils. Only the lower coil was connected to the rest of the world thru ceramic legs. The side and top magnets were all connected thru the "nubs".
Fourth question response - I respectfully submit that one unproven proposal does not preclude a second unproven proposal, so talking about nubs is fair game.
I further submit yet a third unproven proposal, being that by using a purpose built vacuum chamber, all of the Magrid coils could be excited through ceramic legs, all else (Questions 1-3 above) being equal. This would eliminate the nubs entirely.
Quoting from the current contract:
Based upon this review, the contractor will modify the existing wiffleball #7 (WB-7) device by installing compact, high temperature coil joints.
This leads me to think that there may be a reason to retain the nubs, which could be to provide the exact same current through all of the coils. This directs me back to questions 1-3.
Of course another reason to install compact, high temperature coil joints could simply be to enable higher power testing with the existing WB-7 as modified (that is, WB-7.1).