I–V characteristics and magnetic field profile studies in high Tc BSCCO based Helmholtz coil

A double pancake wound high T_c Helmholtz coil has been fabricated using commercial grade BSCCO tape. The current voltage (I–V) characteristics of this HTS coil has been carried out using standard four probe technique. From the I–V characteristics, the critical current based on self field dependent of HTS coil and quality index “n” value have been calculated. Magnetic field profiles have been studied along the axis of this coil for various amplitudes of applied current ranging from 10 A to 50 A at 77 K. The measured field profiles have a very good agreement with that of theoretical values predicted in the literature.     

Comparison of different joint configurations between two parallel SS-laminated BSCCO/Ag tapes

Stainless steel laminated BSCCO/Ag tapes are commercially available for HTS pancake magnet development. The joint between pancakes could be achieved in several configurations like straight lap joint, cross-bridge joint and combination of both. Each type of joint shows different characteristic. We have experimentally studied the characteristic of three types of joint configuration between two pancakes made of SS-laminated BSCCO/Ag tape at 77 K. We have developed two types of cross-bridge joint and one with combination of both straight lap joint and cross-bridge joint. The joint resistance for all three configurations has been compared. The rise in temperature at each joint has been estimated. The joint configuration with the combination of both straight lap joint and cross-bridge joint has given lowest joint resistance which is 0.25 μΩ at 77 K but this configuration has more locally heated zones.     

Interfilamentary coupling properties of Bi2223/Ag tapes with oxide barriers subjected to AC perpendicular magnetic field

In this paper, we fabricated Bi2223 tapes with interfilamentary oxide barriers and evaluated interfilamentary coupling properties under an AC perpendicular magnetic field at 77 K. To avoid the side effect on Bi2223 phase formation during sintering process, SrZrO₃ was selected for barrier materials. Moreover, 20 wt.% Bi2212 was mixed with SrZrO₃ to improve its ductility for cold working. Monocore Ag-sheathed rods were coated by the oxide barriers with slurry before stacking with a honeycomb structure. By twisting the filament with twist pitch length below 10 mm and introducing interfilamentary barriers, the coupling frequency (f_c) under an AC perpendicular field, which is inversely proportional to the decay time constant (τ_c) of coupling current, exceeded 100 Hz. At perpendicular field amplitude above full-penetration field, the magnetization losses of the twisted barrier tape were reduced by 30–40% around power-grid frequency, compared with analytical values for fully-coupled filaments. However, the loss values were still considerably higher than the prediction of the hysteresis loss (Q_h) for the completely decoupled filaments. From the frequency dependence of losses, it was suggested that the loss reduction of twisted barrier tape around power-grid frequency were limited by not only the contribution of coupling current loss (Q_c) but also the insufficient Q_h reduction due to the presence of physical connection among the filaments positioned near the center of a tape section.     

跑道型Bi系高温超导双饼线圈I～E特性计算与实验研究

本文使用Ansys有限元分析软件,建立三维跑道线圈模型,考虑超导线截面电流密度的非均匀分布特性,计算Bi系高温超导双饼线圈中各区域磁场分布、临界电流分布、电流密度分布和电场分布,从而计算线圈的I～E关系曲线,为超导线圈提供一个更为准确的检验标准,对照线圈的测试结果,用此程序计算的线圈I～E关系曲线与测试曲线吻合的较好.     

Large transport critical currents of powder-in-tube Sr0.6K0.4Fe2As2/Ag superconducting wires and tapes

We report the achievement of transport critical currents in Sr_0.6K_0.4Fe₂As₂ wires and tapes with a T_c = 34 K. The wires and tapes were fabricated through an in situ powder-in-tube process. Silver was used as a chemical addition as well as a sheath material. All the wire and tape samples have shown the ability to transport superconducting current. Critical current density J_c was enhanced upon silver addition, and at 4.2 K, a largest J_c of ～1200 A/cm² (I_c = 9 A) was achieved for 20% silver added tapes, which is the highest in iron-based wires and tapes so far. The J_c is almost field independent between 1 T and 10 T, exhibiting a strong vortex pinning. Such a high transport critical current density is attributed to the weak reaction between the silver sheath and the superconducting core, as well as an improved connectivity between grains. We also identify a weak-link behavior from the apparent drop of J_c at low fields and a hysteretic phenomenon. Finally, we found that compared to Fe, Ta and Nb tubes, Ag was the best sheath material for the fabrication of high-performance 122 type pnictide wires and tapes.     

舰船电力系统用1MJ高温超导环型储能磁体的设计研究

介绍了舰船电力系统用 1MJ环型高温超导储能磁体的设计优化步骤 ,进行了环型磁体线圈最大磁场的优化、环型磁体单元尺寸的优化和环型磁体单元数目的优化 ,并得出了合适的磁体线圈尺寸。磁体线圈上的最大磁感应强度为 3-4 T,单元数目较大的环型磁体适用于 1MJHTS- SMES     

Investigation of Bi-2223 high temperature superconducting tape as the material for gradient coil in MRI

The use of Bi-2223 high temperature superconducting (HTS) tape as a material for gradient coils in MRI is evaluated in this paper. Bi-2223 tapes have a very high critical current and a very low power loss. A HTS tape gradient coil is expected to provide much higher gradient strength and generate much lower heating than a copper coil. Measurements of the AC power loss of Bi-2223 tapes at typical operating frequencies for gradient coils are presented. The degradation of the critical current and its effect on the increase of AC power loss is analyzed. Practical technical issues such as resistance, gradient strength and mechanical performance are also discussed. A prototype Bi-2223 HTS tape gradient coil is evaluated to verify the concept.     

Degradation of the performance of a YBCO-coated conductor double pancake coil due to epoxy impregnation

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.     

Magnetically actuated bi-directional microactuators with permalloy and Fe/Pt hard magnet

Bi-directional polyimide (PI) electromagnetic microactuator with different geometries are designed, fabricated and tested. Fabrication of the electromagnetic microactuator consists of 10 μm thick Ni/Fe (80/20) permalloy deposition on the PI diaphragm by electroplating, high aspect ratio electroplating of copper planar coil with 10 μm in thickness, bulk micromachining, and excimer laser selective ablation. They were fabricated by a novel concept avoiding the etching selectivity and residual stress problems during wafer etching. A mathematical model is created by ANSYS software to analyze the microactuator. The external magnetic field intensity (H_ext) generated by the planar coil is simulated by ANSYS software. ANSYS software is used to predict the deflection angle of the microactuator. Besides, to provide bi-directional and large deflection angle of microactuator, hard magnet Fe/Pt is deposited at a low temperature of 300 °C by sputtering onto the PI diaphragm to produce a perpendicular magnetic anisotropic field. This magnetic field can enhance the interaction with H_ext to induce attractive and repulsive bi-directional force to provide large displacement. The results of magnetic microactuator with and without hard magnets are compared and discussed. The preliminary result reveals that the electromagnetic microactuator with hard magnet shows a greater deflection angle than that without one.     

Evaluation of critical current based on a new transition concept

The critical current of high-temperature superconductor (HTS) tapes depends on temperature, magnetic field, and flux angle against the tape. Analyzing the performance of an HTS coil relies on the critical current equation, which has these dependencies. To date, the critical current equation has been obtained by fitting the measured data. However, this fitting method requires the time-consuming and laborious work of measuring the tapes. In this study, based on a new transition concept in applying a magnetic field, we show how to obtain the critical current equation, while keeping the temperature constant. From the wave function of the Cooper pair which distributes along a magnetic flux quantum, a wave function at the transition state is obtained; this yields the wave functions with perpendicular and parallel magnetic components against the tape. Combining these wave functions yields the conclusive critical current density equation. To confirm the accuracy of this equation, used Bi-2223/Ag tapes, it was compared with the measured critical current under various magnetic fields and flux angles; it was found that they agree well. The parameters of this equation can be obtained by measuring the perpendicular/parallel critical magnetic field component. This equation does not require fitting the measured data, therefore, it can be employed with any Bi-2223/Ag tape.     

国产MOCVD-YBCO带材高温超导线圈研制与磁场温度特性研究

超导磁体的场强与超导材料的载流能力、磁体口径和低温环境有密切关系.为了在中高温区域实现高磁场强度的超导磁体,采用国产第二代高温超导带材,成功绕制出内直径为100 mm的高温超导线圈.该超导线圈在77,65,55和46 K不同温区下进行了性能测试,其最大运行电流分别为65,147,257和338 A,对应的中心磁场强度分别为0.78,1.77,3.1和4.08 T.所研制的超导线圈的中平面上磁场基本一致.     

The design of a body RF coil for low-field open MRI using pseudo electric dipole radiation and simulated annealing

The paper presents a new body RF coil design scheme for a low-field open MRI system. The RF coil is composed of four rectangular loops which are made of wide copper strips located near the surfaces of the bottom and top pole faces of the permanent magnet. The body RF coil has been designed by using the pseudo electric dipole radiation (PEDPR) method with the Metropolis algorithm. In the calculation of the RF fields via the finite difference time domain (FDTD) method, the computational time increases as the RF frequency becomes lower. Moreover, the computational process using the FDTD method takes a very long time when the RF coil is optimized. The optimization requires varying the configuration of the RF coil system and performing successive calculations of field strength and field homogeneity. When we perform these successive calculations, the computational time can be reduced by using the PEDPR method, where the segmented current elements of the RF coil are treated as pseudo electric dipole radiation sources. Because the RF coil is made of wide strips, the variation of the current density on the strip has been considered in the B₁-field calculation. For each configuration of the RF coil system, the current distribution is calculated via circuit analysis, where each copper strip is considered as a parallel combination of current element lines. The preliminary field calculation study by the FDTD method verifies both the circuit analysis method for the current distribution and the PEDPR method for the radiation field strength. The optimization of the RF coil configuration is performed by the Simulated Annealing (SA) process using the Metropolis algorithm. Simulations have been performed for a 10 MHz RF frequency. The optimized RF coil has four rectangular loops of 37 cm × 100 cm with 6.5 cm wide strips which are separated vertically 49 cm and horizontally center-to-center 63 cm. In the 25 cm diameter of spherical volume (DSV), the design results show a good field inhomogeneity of the B₁-field below 0.49 dB (5.8%).     

Reel-to-reel fabrication of meter-long YBCO coated conductor

YBa₂Cu₃O_7?δ (YBCO) superconductors were coated on the CeO₂/YSZ/Y₂O₃ buffered Ni-5at%W tapes by a reel-to-reel pulsed laser deposition (PLD). The process of a multi-layer deposition of YBCO film was explored. X-ray diffraction texture measurements showed good both in-plane and out of plane crystalline orientations in YBCO films. The average values calculated at a full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the peaks from phi-scans (φ) and omega (ω) scans for one meter-long YBCO tape were 7.49° and 4.71°, respectively. The critical current (I_c) was over 200 A/cm-width at 77 K and under self-field for meter-long YBCO tape. The critical transition temperature of the YBCO tape was typically as 90.1 K with 0.5 K transition widths.     

高温超导磁体临界电流影响因素的研究

临界电流值是描述Bi2223高温超导带材性能的一个基本参数,在一定的温度条件下,Bi2223高温超导带材的临界电流是带材所在位置磁场大小和磁场方向的函数,其短样的临界电流值可以通过四引线法测量,单根超导带材的自场很小,磁场对临界电流的影响可以忽略.高温超导磁体的临界电流被定义成引发该磁体失超的最小电流,高温超导磁体的自场比单根超导带材的自场要大得多,磁体各个位置的磁场大小和方向各不相同,很难用理论的方法准确计算磁体的临界电流.对于高温超导磁体而言,除了磁场的影响因素以外,绕制磁体所用的超导带材自身的均匀性也是影响其临界电流的一个重要因素.本文对这两个因素进行探讨,并着重讨论高温超导带材自身的均匀性对临界电流大小的影响,本文的结论可以为高温超导磁体的设计、磁体绕制时带材的选择、磁体运行时安全工作电流的确定提供帮助.     

Flux pinning by discontinuous columnar defects in 74 MeV Ag-irradiated YBa2Cu3O7 coated conductors

Linear damage tracks are created in production-quality YBCO coated conductors by irradiation with 61–74 MeV Ag ions. The ion tracks are observed by transmission electron microscopy to be elongated but discontinuous. The in-field transport critical current (I_c) is enhanced significantly for fields applied parallel to the irradiation direction with a broad peak appearing in the magnetic field-angle dependence of the critical current, coinciding with the irradiation direction. The zero-field I_c is typically reduced somewhat, however annealing at 200 °C partially restores this and enhances the in-field I_c even for field parallel to the irradiation direction. Lower energies tend to produce a weaker peak, but also retain the zero-field I_c to a greater extent, consistent with a trend of greater discontinuity in the ion tracks.     

YBCO线圈在低温下的温度仿真分析

近几年,高温超导线材的制造技术已日趋成熟。作为第二代高温超导带材的代表,YBCO在低温下具有的优点使其在超导磁体领域的应用越来越突出。但是在高温超导磁体的运行中会因为受到扰动而失超。为了探讨这个问题,模拟了一个磁体在低温下(20K左右)有加热点扰动时的稳定性情况,即对YBCO线圈在低温下的工作情况进行了模拟仿真。文中根据实验设计的YBCO单饼线圈参数,利用热传导方程和基本电路方程,采用有限元计算方法,模拟出线圈内部的温度分布。分析仿真结果可以为后续实验设计提供参考。     

30 mm wide process of GdBCO PLD/clad-type textured metal substrates

Gd₁Ba₂Cu₃O_x (GdBCO) coated conductors using bi-axially textured clad-type substrates have been developed for high temperatures superconducting (HTS) power cables. In this project, large amount of coated conductors (CCs) are necessary for the several tests of basic properties of HTS power cables and the fabrication of a 15 m long 3-in-one HTS model cable. In order to ensure an adequate amount and properties of coated conductors, the stable manufacturing technology and the high production rate at each process are required.In this report, we have newly installed a high power laser of 300 W for the PLD system, resulting in improvement of the manufacturing stability and the deposition rate for GdBCO film. In addition, we have optimized target–substrate distance in PLD process, and the uniformity of I_c distribution across 30 mm wide tapes were remarkably improved. Furthermore, the surface morphology of buffer layers were enhanced by optimizing the deposition condition using electron beam (EB) evaporation method, and the maximum I_c value for a short sample has achieved 497 A/cm at 77 K in the self-field. Based on these progresses, we are currently developing the stable manufacturing process for long CCs with over 400 A/cm.     

Calculation of the critical currents of Bi(2223)/Ag tapes and coils with reduced anisotropy in Ic(B) characteristic — effect of different proportional representations of the filaments oriented parallel and perpendicularly to the tape surface

A mathematical model was developed to allow for the prediction of critical currents in Bi(2223)/Ag-sheathed tapes that consist of two groups of filaments, having crystalline texture (c-axis) predominantly in two directions orthogonal to each other and to the length of the conductor (filaments oriented parallel and perpendicular to the tape surface). Using the theory presented, it is possible to estimate the upper limit of critical currents in the tapes prepared with a two-axial rolling technique. Magnetic field and angular dependencies of critical currents were obtained at 77 K measuring tapes with various proportional representations of filaments oriented in both preferred directions, i.e., the parallel and perpendicular directions. The results of calculation indicate that the anisotropy in the I_c(B) characteristic should be reduced considerably using the two-axial rolling. Unfortunately, the effect of anisotropy reduction is accompanied by simultaneous decrease in the current-carrying capacity of the tapes. The data obtained for short tape samples were utilised to estimate the critical currents of the individual turns of a small cylindrical magnet, assembled of eight pancake coils. It is shown that only a slight increase in the critical current of the magnet can be expected if the winding should be made of the tape with reduced anisotropy in the I_c(B) characteristic. The factors that limit the increase of the magnet critical current are discussed in detail.     

Performance improvement of a high-temperature superconducting coil by separating and grading the coil edge

In this paper, we establish a model to analyze the transport current performance of a high-temperature superconducting (HTS) coil, considering the dependencies of critical current and n-value of an HTS tape on magnetic field and magnetic field angles. This analysis shows that relatively large electric fields appear at the coil’s edges, preventing improvement in the transport current performance of the coil. To solve this problem, in this paper, we propose a graded coil in which several coil edges of different heights are separated and graded. Analysis of its performance shows that the coil’s critical current increases, thus confirming that there exists an optimum coil cross section at which the stored energy and central magnetic field improve 2.1 times and 45%, respectively, compared with a typical rectangular coil that employs the same total length of the HTS tape. It is recommended that these results of the coil should be applied to SMES.     

传输交流的Bi2223/Ag高温超导带在不同取向交流外场下的交流损耗

在高温超导的电力应用中，如超导电机、变压器等，多数情况下，高温超导带材在通以交流传输电流的同时还处于交变磁场中。此时，超导体的交流损耗不仅依赖于磁场的大小，还与磁场相对于超导带面的取向有关。本文在77K及工频50Hz情况下，实验研究了单根多芯Bi2223/Ag高温超导带及两带并联时的交流损耗随着外磁场与带面夹角的变化情况；以及交流磁场对临界电流的影响情况；并对单根带及两带并联的实验结果进行了比较与分析。