Speaker
Description
ReBCO high temperature superconducting cables have the potential to push the performance limits of fusion and high energy physics magnets. One of the ongoing development challenges with this research is conductor stability, caused by local performance reductions in individual tapes from tape manufacturing, magnet manufacturing and magnet operation. The resulting current redistribution around these defects can induce a magnet quench and irreversible performance degradation. In this work, we present our progress on individual tape powering experiments in CORC® high temperature superconducting cables to probe this phenomenon. Developments in the cable termination, electrical controls for automated tape switching and a simplified model for current percolation in CORC® cables are presented. Analyzed measurements are shown with a straight cable and with a bent cable at radii of 152 mm and 76 mm. The Lawrencium computing cluster is then used to attempt to fit model parameters to these experiments. The methods and results provide both quantitative insight and help derive deeper understanding of the current sharing and current distributions in High Temperature Superconducting cables.
