Theva (Germany)

The magnetic field is an outstanding experimental tool for physics. To go beyond the conventional commercially available superconducting (SC) magnets, very large infrastructures such as the ones gathered within the European Magnetic Field Laboratory (EMFL) are necessary. The SuperEMFL project is a design study aiming at providing the European high field user community with much higher superconducting fields. This is meant to be achieved by combining high temperature superconductor (HTS) insert magnets, an emerging technology that can work in fields above 25T, with low temperature superconductor (LTS) outsert magnets, a technology limited to fields below 25 T. The project has two design magnetic field targets, 32+T and 40+T. The first design target proposed to combined a single stack of HTS pancakes in combination with a 19 T / 150 mm LTS magnet; the second either a similar arrangement at the sake of a narrower central space or a design with two nested HTS coils combined with a 15 T/ 250 mm LTS magnet. The particular choice of the project is to use no insulation but a metallic tape co-wound with the bare HTS tape. This so-called Metal as Insulation (MI) technology enables a self-protection feature of the HTS coil by allowing the electrical bypass of defects as well as better mechanical performances in a very compact winding. The use of HTS inserts introduces a change of paradigm by providing an unprecedented combination of high magnetic field and long measurement times whilst saving vast amounts of energy in operation.

State of the Art Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) systems, based on conventional copper coils, are known to exhibit efficiencies well above 90% when operated in the resonantly coupled mid-range regime. Besides full system efficiency, the area- and weight-related power densities of the transmission coils are key figures of merit for high power applications. This paper reports on a fully functional WPT system, consisting of single pancake high-temperature superconducting (HTS) coils on the transmitter and the receiver side, which exceeds the power density of most conventional systems. Despite a compact coil size, a DC-to-DC efficiency above 97% is achieved at 6 kW output power. Next to the fundamental coil design, analytical and numerical simulations of the AC loss in the HTS coils are shown, taking into account both hysteresis and eddy current contributions. The results are validated by experimental AC loss measurements of single coils, obtained by a standard lock-in technique up to frequencies of 4 kHz. Finally, experimental results of the full system performance at different frequencies and load conditions are presented.

Trapped-flux magnets made of stacks of superconducting tapes are an interesting and important alternative to the application of rare-earth permanent magnets and trapping flux in bulk superconductors. Many applications, such as electric motors, can require the complex shapes of magnetic elements to combat issues such as demagnetization during the operation. Therefore, a reliable production technique of high temperature superconductor (HTS) stacks with different geometries is required to meet the needs of industry. In this article, a method of shaping the epoxy-glued stacks of superconducting tapes is proposed and investigated. The application of hot press allows to easily change the shape of the stack. The influence of shaping the stack on the density of trapped magnetic flux as well as critical current are presented. Experimental and numerical analyses are performed and their results are matched to find the change in the superconducting properties of the tapes. They show that with the proper process parameters the stacks can be shaped with only minor decrease of performance. However, strong degradation is observed if the applied force is too high. The observed problems are discussed and the possible solutions are proposed.

E-J traces have been measured on an inclined substrate deposition coated conductor up to 0.7 T as a function of angle at 77K. A large change in J c is seen on reversal of the direction of the magnetic field, associated with different surface barriers to flux nucleation. The effect of angular hysteresis and field hysteresis on J c has been found to be much smaller. Narrow bridges have been successfully fabricated by a simple scribing technique using a diamond-tipped scribe and a template. These bridges have been made from 1.4 mm to 4 mm width on the 12 mm width tape, which decrease I c linearly with width. Measurements before and after the heat treatment for strain gauge glue curing at 170 °C for 120 min have been made and confirm there is no systematic decrease in J c.

DyBa2Cu3O7−x (DyBCO) films with MgO buffer layers were grown on Hastelloy substrates by inclined substrate deposition (ISD). An almost linear increase of the critical current with the DyBCO film thickness was observed. A maximum critical current of 1018 A cm−1 was measured for a DyBCO film with 5.9 μm thickness, yielding a critical current density of 1.7 MA cm−2 at 77 K and self-field. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) yielded highly biaxially textured DyBCO films at all thicknesses and, thus, no significant decrease of the critical current density occurs with the film thickness. ISD yields a non-zero component of the growth direction parallel to the DyBCO (a, b)-plane since the DyBCO grows on a faceted MgO surface and avoids a-axis growth. Therefore, the ISD technology offers a unique possibility to overcome thickness limitations in coated conductor technology.

The uniaxial pressure dependence of the critical temperature causes a reversible effect of strain on the critical current density and the flux pinning strength in many high-temperature superconductors. Recent experiments on patterned coated conductor bridges have shown that the anisotropic nature of the pressure dependence of the critical temperature of rare earth (RE)- <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex Notation="TeX">$\hbox{Ba}_{2}\hbox{Cu}_{3}\hbox{O}_{7 - \delta}$</tex></formula> (REBCO) has a major impact on the performance of coated conductors under strain. The strain effect on the critical current density is most prominent when the strain is along the [100] and [010] directions of the superconducting film, whereas it almost completely disappears when the strain is along [110]. In this paper, we investigate the correlation between the uniaxial-pressure dependence of the critical temperature and the reversible strain effect on flux pinning in REBCO coated conductors. We show that axial strain has a large effect on the irreversibility field and the pinning force in coated conductors when the [100] and [010] directions of the superconducting film are aligned along the conductor axis. The magnitude of the strain effect in these conductors largely depends on the angle at which the magnetic field is applied. On the other hand, the critical temperature is not expected to change with the axial strain in coated conductors when the [110] direction is aligned along the conductor axis. Indeed, the irreversibility field and the magnetic field dependence of the pinning force of these conductors are almost independent of the axial strain for all angles at which the magnetic field is applied. The minor strain dependence of the critical current measured in these conductors could be caused by the average in-plane grain misalignment of between 6 <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex Notation="TeX">$^{\circ}$</tex></formula> and 8 <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex Notation="TeX">$^{\circ}$</tex></formula> , which causes a slight variation in the strain alignment with the axes of the superconducting film. The results confirm that the reversible strain effect in REBCO coated conductors is largely determined by the uniaxial pressure dependence of the critical temperature.

Flux pining properties of columnar defects nucleated by gold ion irradiation was investigated for DyBCO coated conductor. The energy of irradiated gold ions was 320 MeV and 200 MeV and the matching field was 1.0 and 2.0 T, respectively. It was found that the flux pinning strength was significantly enhanced at high magnetic fields. These experimental results were analysed using the summation theory of the elementary pinning forces with the theoretical model of flux creep and flow. It was found that the experimental results can be explained by the theories. The obtained result suggests that columnar defects with larger radius are more effective for pinning because of the larger probability of catching flux lines.