Bending characteristics of a round strand made by stacked HTS tapes

Abstract

Although the development of REBCO coated conductor has proved its superiority of critical current in high-field background, mechanical issues caused by electromagnetic forces are still big challenges. Large-scale magnets call for robust and high-J_e cables for simplicity of the system. To meet the requirements, here we report a round cable comprised of a stack of 2 mm wide high-temperature superconducting (HTS) tapes inserted into a copper tube and all soldered with Sn₆₃Pb₃₇. The two prepared samples include five HTS tapes and four copper strips in untwisted manner. Self-field critical current at 77 K was analyzed both numerically and experimentally. The characteristics of in-plane (hard) and out-of-plane (easy) bending were analyzed by finite element method (FEM) and compared to experimental measurements. Good agreement was found between the analysis and experimental results on critical bending radius, which is about 200–215 mm. Our results indicate the robustness of the round strand and its potential for use in large-scale magnets.