Earticle

Field and temperature dependence of the critical current density, Jc, were measured for both un-doped and carbon doped MgB2/Nb/Monel wires manufactured by Hyper Tech Research, Inc. In particular, carbon incorporation into the MgB2 structure using malic acid additive and a chemical solution method can be advantageous because of the highly uniform mixing between the carbon and boron powders. At 4.2 K and 10 T, Jc was estimated to be 25,000 - 25,300 Acm-2 for the wire sintered at 600oC for 4 hours. The irreversibility field, Birr, of the malic acid doped wire was approximately 21.0 - 21.8 T, as obtained from a linear extrapolation of the J-B characteristic. Interestingly enough, the Jc of the malic acid doped sample exceeds 105 Acm-2 at 6 T and 4.2 K, which is comparable to that of commercial Nb-Ti wires.

The history of IFMFC (International Forum on Magnetic Force Control) shows the usefulness of the magnetic force control in the fields of the environment and material resource in Japan, Korea and China. The IFMFC started in 2010 and has been organized in every year. This paper shows the application of the magnetic force control in each countries with the accumulated knowledge and experience of the magnetic force control with IFMFC.

In this study, we developed a new volume reduction technique for cesium contaminated soil by magnetic separation. Cs in soil is mainly adsorbed on clay which is the smallest particle constituent in the soil, especially on paramagnetic 2:1 type clay minerals which strongly adsorb and fix Cs. Thus selective separation of 2:1 type clay with a superconducting magnet could enable to reduce the volume of Cs contaminated soil. The 2:1 type clay particles exist in various particle sizes in the soil, which leads that magnetic force and Cs adsorption quantity depend on their particle size. Accordingly, we examined magnetic separation conditions for efficient separation of 2:1 type clay considering their particle size distribution. First, the separation rate of 2:1 type clay for each particle size was calculated by particle trajectory simulation, because magnetic separation rate largely depends on the objective size. According to the calculation, 73 and 89 % of 2:1 type clay could be separated at 2 and 7 T, respectively. Moreover we calculated dose reduction rate on the basis of the result of particle trajectory simulation. It was indicated that 17 and 51 % of dose reduction would be possible at 2 and 7 T, respectively. The difference of dose reduction rate at 2 T and 7 T was found to be separated a fine particle. It was shown that magnetic separation considering particle size distribution would contribute to the volume reduction of contaminated soil.

Organic compounds have a problem that the separation of structural isomer in the preparation process requires high energy consumption. This study proposes a new separation method of structural isomer using Magneto- Archimedes method. Firstly, the levitation height of 1, 6-DDA and 1, 10-DDA was respectively calculated by simulation of the forces acting on the particles under magnetic field, and it was indicated that they could be separated by the difference of levitation height. To confirm the phenomenon experimentally, white powders of 1, 6-DDA and 1, 10-DDA were formed into pellets, and were soaked in manganese chloride solution. Then the solution was put on the center of the cryostat of HTS bulk magnet (maximum magnetic flux density is 3T). As a result, it was confirmed that the separation of structural isomer by difference of levitation height could be possible.

A Superconducting High Gradient Magnetic Separation (HGMS) system is proposed for treatment of feed-water in thermal power plant [1]. This is a method to remove the iron scale from feed-water utilizing magnetic force. One of the issues for practical use of HGMS system is to extend continuous operation period. In this study, we designed the magnetic filters by particle trajectory simulation and HGMS experiments in order to solve this problem. As a result, the quantity of magnetite captured by each filter was equalized and filter blockage was prevented. A design method of the magnetic filter was proposed which is suitable for the long-term continuous scale removal in the feed-water system of the thermal power plant.

The technologies using magnetic force control have been investigated toward application in various fields. Some of them have been put into practical use as the results of technological development. This paper introduces our technical development in the field of water processing, scale removal, magnetic drug delivery system, decontamination of radioactive substances and resources recycling.

There are a few thousand abandoned metal mines in South Korea. The abandoned mines cause several environmental problems including releasing acid mine drainage (AMD), which contain a very high acidity and heavy metal ions such as Fe, Cu, Cd, Pb, and As. Iron oxides can be formed from the AMD by increasing the solution pH and inducing precipitation. Current study focused on the formation of iron oxide in an AMD and used the oxide for adsorption of heavy metals. The heavy metal adsorbed iron oxide was separated with a superconducting magnet. The duration of iron oxide formation affected on the type of mineral and the degree of magnetization. The removal rate of heavy metal by the adsorption process with the formed iron oxide was highly dependent on the type of iron oxide and the solution pH. A high gradient magnetic separation (HGMS) system successfully separated the iron oxide and harmful heavy metals.

Suppression of the superconducting transition temperature (Tc) of NbN thin films in superconductor/ferromagnet multilayers has been investigated. Both superconducting NbN and ferromagnetic FeN layers were deposited on thermally oxidized Si substrate at room temperature by using reactive magnetron sputtering in an Ar-N2 gas mixture. The thickness of FeN films was fixed at 20 nm, while the thickness of NbN films was varied from 3 nm to 90 nm. Tc suppression was clearly observed in NbN layers up to 70 nm thickness when NbN layer was in proximity with FeN layer. For a given thickness of NbN layer, the magnitude of Tc suppression was increased in the order of Si/FeN/NbN, Si/NbN/FeN, and Si/FeN/NbN/FeN structure. This result can be used to design a spin switch whose operation is based on the proximity effect between superconducting and ferromagnetic layers.

We have investigated the addition effect of NiO magnetic nanoparticles on crystal structure, microstructure as well as superconducting properties of MgB2. NiO-added MgB2 samples were prepared by the solid-state reaction method. The superconducting transition temperature (Tc) of 37.91 K was obtained for pure MgB2, and Tc was found to decrease systematically on increasing the addition level of NiO. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis revealed that no substitution of Ni for Mg in the lattice of MgB2 was occurred. The microstructural analysis shows that the pure MgB2 sample consists of plate shape MgB2 grains, and the grains get refined to smaller size with the addition of NiO nanoparticles. At 5 K, high values of critical current density (Jc) were obtained for small amount NiO-added MgB2 samples as compared to pure sample. The enhancement in Jc could be attributed to the refinement of MgB2 grains which leads to high density of grain boundaries in NiO-added MgB2 samples.

The technology of supplying the electric power by wireless power transfer (WPT) is expected for the next generation power feeding system since it can supply the power to portable devices without any connectors through large air gap. As such a technology based on strongly coupled electromagnetic resonators is possible to deliver the large power and recharge them seamlessly; it has been considered as a noble option to wireless power charging system in the various power applications. Recently, various HTS wires have now been manufactured for demonstrations of transmission cables, motors, MAGLEV, and other electrical power components. However, since the HTS magnets have a lower index n value intrinsically, they are required to be charged from external power system through leads or internal power system. The portable area is limited as well as the cryogen system is bulkier. Thus, we proposed a novel design of wireless power charging system for superconducting HTS magnet (WPC4SM) based on resonance coupling method. As the novel system makes possible a wireless power charging using copper resonance coupled coils, it enables to portable charging conveniently in the superconducting applications. This paper presented the conceptual design and operating characteristics of WPC4SM using different shapes' copper resonance coil. The proposed system consists of four components; RF generator of 370 kHz, copper resonance coupling coils, impedance matching (IM) subsystem and HTS magnet including rectifier system.

The wireless power transfer (WPT) system using a magnetic resonance was based on magnetic resonance coupling of the transmission and the receiver coils. In these system, it is important to maintain a high quality-factor (Q- factor) to increase the transmission efficiency of WPT system. Our research team used a superconducting coil to increase the Q-factor of the magnetic resonance coil in WPT system. When the superconductor is applied in these system, we confirmed that transmission efficiency of WPT system was higher than normal conductor coil through a preceding study. The efficiency of the transmission and the receiver coil is affected by the magnetic shielding effect of materials around the coils. The magnetic shielding effect is dependent on the type, thickness, frequency, distance, shape of materials. Therefore, it is necessary to study the WPT system on the basis of these conditions. In this paper, the magnetic shield properties of the cooling system were analyzed using the High-Frequency Structure Simulation (HFSS, Ansys) program. We have used the shielding materials such as plastic, aluminum and iron, etc. As a result, when we applied the fiber reinforced polymer (FRP), the transmission efficiency of WPT was not affected because electromagnetic waves went through the FRP. On the other hand, in case of a iron and aluminum, transmission efficiency was decreased because of their electromagnetic shielding effect. Based on these results, the research to improve the transmission efficiency and reliability of WPT system is continuously necessary.

In this paper, a hybrid method is proposed to design an air-core superconducting solenoid system for 6 T axial uniform magnetic field using Niobium Titanium (NbTi) superconducting wire. In order to minimize the volume of conductor, the hybrid optimization method including a linear programming and a nonlinear programming was adopted. The feasible space of solenoid is divided by several grids and the magnetic field at target point is approximated by the sum of magnetic field generated by an ideal current loop at the center of each grid. Using the linear programming, a global optimal current distribution in the feasible space can be indicated by non-zero current grids. Furthermore the clusters of the non-zero current grids also give the information of probable solenoids in the feasible space, such as the number, the shape, and so on. Applying these probable solenoids as the initial model, the final practical configuration of solenoids with integer layers can be obtained by the nonlinear programming. The design result illustrates the efficiency and the flexibility of the hybrid method. And this method can also be used for the magnet design which is required the high homogeneity within several ppm (parts per million).

Quench Detection System (QDS) is essential to guarantee the stable operation of the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) Poloidal Field (PF) magnet system because the stored energy in the magnet system is very large. For the fast response, voltage-based QDS has been used. Co-wound voltage sensors and balanced bridge circuits were applied to eliminate the inductive voltages generated during the plasma operation. However, as the inductive voltages are hundreds times higher than the quench detection voltage during the pulse-current operation, Central Difference Averaging (CDA) and MIK, where I and K stand for mutual coupling indexes of different circuits, which is an active cancellation of mutually generated voltages have been suggested and studied. In this paper, the CDA and MIK technique were applied to the KSTAR magnet for PF magnet quench detection. The calculated inductive voltages from the MIK and measured voltages from the CDA circuits were compared to eliminate the inductive voltages at result signals.

The superconducting NMR magnets have used cryogen such as liquid helium for their cooling. The conduction cooling method using cryocoolers, however, makes the cryogenic cooling system for NMR magnets more compact and user-friendly than the cryogen cooling method. This paper describes the thermal and structural analysis of a cryogenic conduction cooling system for a 400 MHz HTS NMR magnet, focusing on the magnet assembly. The highly thermo-conductive cooling plates between HTS double pancake coils are used to transfer the heat generated in coils, namely Joule heating at lap splice joints, to thermal link blocks and finally the cryocooler. The conduction cooling structure of the HTS magnet assembly preliminarily designed is verified by thermal and structural analysis. The orthotropic thermal properties of the HTS coil, thermal contact resistance and radiation heat load are considered in the thermal analysis. The thermal analysis confirms the uniform temperature distribution for the present thermal design of the NMR magnet within 0.2 K. The mechanical stress and the displacement by the electromagnetic force and the thermal contraction are checked to verify structural stability. The structural analysis indicates that the mechanical stress on each component of the magnet is less than its material yield strength and the displacement is acceptable in comparison with the magnet dimension.

High Temperature Superconductor power cable systems are being developed actively to solve the problem of increasing power demand. With increases in the unit length of the High Temperature Superconductor power cable, it is necessary to develop highly efficient and reliable cryogenic pumps to transport the coolant over long distances. Generally, to obtain a high degree of efficiency, the cryogenic pump requires a high pressure rise with a low flow rate, and a partial emission type pump is appropriate considering its low specific speed, which is different from the conventional centrifugal type, full emission type. This paper describes the design of a partial emission pump to circulate subcooled liquid nitrogen. It consists of an impeller, a circular case and a diffuser. The conventional pump and the partial emission pump have different features in the impeller and the discharge flow passage. The partial emission pump uses an impeller with straight radial blades. The emission of working fluid does not occur continuously from all of the impeller channels, and the diffuser allows the flow only from a part of the impeller channels. As the area of the diffuser increases gradually, it converts the dynamic pressure into static pressure while minimizing the loss of total pressure. We used the known numerical method for the optimum design process and made a CFD analysis to verify the theoretical performance.