Now that YBCO-coated conductors have been commercialized, a number of YBCO coils have been developed. However, their basic performances have not been systematically investigated so far. Here, we demonstrate that of a YBCO double pancake coil. The critical current of an epoxy impregnated YBCO double pancake coil was substantially degraded, i.e. the normal voltage appears above 8 A, only 18 % of that for the dry coil. It was inferred that degradation occurs if the cumulative radial stress developed during cool down exceeds the critical transverse stress for the YBCO-coated conductor (typically 10 MPa). Under these conditions, the conductor was debonded at the interface between the buffer layer and YBCO layers, or fractured in the YBCO layer itself, causing cracks on the YBCO layer, resulting in a significant decline of the critical current. These negative effects are suppressed if the coils are dry wound or impregnated with paraffin, as the bonding strengths between turns are negligible and therefore turns are separated if the cumulative radial stress tends to be tensile. For non-circular coils in which epoxy impregnation is inevitable, degradation due to cumulative tensile transverse stress is still the major problem.
a b s t r a c tCleavage strength for an YBCO-coated conductor at 77 K was investigated with a model experiment. The nominal cleavage strength for an YBCO-coated conductor is extremely low, typically 0.5 MPa. This low nominal cleavage strength is due to stress concentration on a small part of the YBCO-coated conductor in cleavage fracture. Debonding by the cleavage stress occurs at the interface between the buffer layer and the Hastelloy substrate. The nominal cleavage strength for a slit edge of the conductor is 2.5-times lower than that for the original edge of the conductor; cracks and micro-peel existing over the slit edge reduce the cleavage strength for the slit edge. Cleavage stress and peel stress should be avoided in coil winding, as they easily delaminate the YBCO-coated conductor, resulting in substantial degradation of coil performance. These problems are especially important for epoxy impregnated YBCO-coated conductor coils. It appears that effect of cleavage stress and peel stress are mostly negligible for paraffin impregnated YBCO-coated conductor coils or dry wound YBCO-coated conductor coils.
A numerical simulation method which deals with the screening current-induced magnetic field for YBCO coils, including the self field effect induced by the transport current, has been developed. The simulation agrees well with the experimental results for an YBCO solenoid. Based on the numerical simulation, the effect of coil shape on the screening current-induced magnetic field intensity for the YBCO coils has been investigated. The field was demonstrated to reach a maximum if the solenoid corresponds to the minimum-volume design; it amounts to as large as 18% of the central magnetic field. Two major problems must be considered for YBCO coils regarding the screening current: (a) a reduction in the central magnetic field by the screening current and (b) a temporal drift of the apparent magnetic field due to relaxation of the screening current by flux creep. It is suggested that the latter can be suppressed by a current sweep reversal technique.Index Terms-Coil shape factor, screening current-induced magnetic field, YBCO coil.
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