Full 3D thermal-hydraulic and electric modelling of quench propagation in HTS conductors

Abstract A fully three-dimensional multi-physics model to simulate quench propagation in high temperature superconducting (HTS) conductors for fusion applications is presented. It accounts for thermal, electric and fluid dynamics throughout the entire transient. The need for high-fidelity models for quench simulations comes from the bulky layouts of many HTS conductors that are being proposed. The model is then validated against experimental data, showing a good agreement on all the relevant quantities (local voltages and temperatures). It is shown that the detailed model improves the quality of the agreement with the measured data with respect to more simplified models. It also allows an insight on the temperature distributions in the conductor cross-section, which can be relevant for the interpretation of experimental data as well as to support the design of quench detection strategies which rely on local temperature variations.