Earticle

Ion-beam assisted deposition (IBAD) technology has been successfully applied to high- temperature superconductor coated conductors (CC) as textured substrates. Since the coated conductors were proposed as a potential framework for utilizing the superior transport characteristics of YBa2Cu3O7 and related cuprate oxides, several methods including rolling-assisted bi-axial textured substrates (RABiTS) and inclined substrate deposition (ISD), as well as IBAD, have been attempted. As of 2016, most companies that are trying to commercialize CC adapt IBAD technology except for American Superconductors who use RABiTS predominantly. For the materials in the IBAD process, initial efforts to use yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) or related fluorites in Fujikura in Japan have quickly given way to MgO which technique was developed by Stanford University in the USA. In this review, we present a historical overview of IBAD technology, in particular, for the application of CC. We describe the key scientific understanding of nucleation, the texturing mechanism, and the growth of large bi-axial grains and discuss some potential new IBAD materials and systems for large-scale production.

The enhancement of mechanical properties of coated conductor (CC) tapes in practical application are usually achieved by reinforcing through lamination or electroplating metal layers on either sides of the CC tape. Mechanical or electromechanical properties of the CC tapes have been largely affected by the lamination structure under various loading modes such as tension, bending or even cyclic. In this study, the influence of brass laminate volume fraction on electromechanical properties of RCE-DR processed Gadolinium-barium-copper-oxide (GdBCO) CC tapes was investigated. The samples used were composed of single-side and both-side laminate of brass layer to the Cu-stabilized CC tape and their Ic behaviors were compared to those of the Cu-stabilized CC tape without external lamination. The stress/strain dependences of Ic in laminated CC tapes under uniaxial tension were analyzed and the irreversible stress/strain limits were determined. As a result, the increase of brass laminate volume fraction initially increased the irreversible strain limit and became gradual. The corresponding irreversible stress limit, however, showed no difference even though the brass laminate volume fraction increased to 3.4. But the irreversible load limit linearly increased with the brass laminate volume fraction.

The Cable-In-Conduit-Conductor (CICC) for the ITER tokamak Central Solenoid (CS) has undergone design change since the first prototype conductor sample was tested in 2010. After tests showed that the performance of initial conductor samples degraded rapidly without stabilization, an alternate design with shorter sub-cable twist pitches was tested and discovered to satisfy performance requirements, namely that the minimum current sharing temperature (Tcs) remained above a given limit under DC bias. With consistent successful performance of ITER CS conductor CICC samples using the alternate design, an attempt is made here to revisit the internal electromagnetic properties of the CICC cable design to identify any correlation with conductor performance. Results of this study suggest that there may be a simple link between the Nb3Sn CICC internal self-field and its Tcs performance. The study also suggests that an optimization process should exist that can further improve the performance of Nb3Sn based CICC.

Recently, production technique and property of the High-Temperature Superconductor (HTS) tape have been improved. Thus, the study on applying an HTS magnet to the high magnetic field application is rapidly increased. A Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectrometer requires high magnitude and homogeneous of central magnetic field. However, the HTS magnet has fabrication errors because shape of HTS is tape and HTS magnet is manufactured by winding HTS tape to the bobbin. The fabrication errors are winding error, bobbin diameter error, spacer thickness error and so on. The winding error occurs when HTS tape is departed from the arranged position on the bobbin. The bobbin diameter and spacer thickness error occur since the diameter of bobbin and spacer are inaccurate. These errors lead magnitude and homogeneity of central magnetic field to be different from its ideal design. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of winding error, bobbin diameter error and spacer thickness error on the central field and field homogeneity of HTS magnet using the virtual NMR signals in MATLAB simulation.

A quench detection system of KSTAR Poloidal Field (PF) coils is inevitable for stable operation because normal zone generates overheating during quench occurrence. Recently, new voltage quench detection method, combination of Central Difference Averaging (CDA) and Mutual Inductance Compensation (MIK) for compensating mutual inductive voltage more effectively than conventional voltage detection method, has been suggested and studied. For better performance of mutual induction cancellation by adjacent coils of CDA+MIK method for KSTAR coil system, balance coefficients of CDA must be estimated and adjusted preferentially. In this paper, the balance coefficients of CDA for KSTAR PF coils were numerically estimated. The estimated result was adopted and tested by using simulation. The CDA method adopting balance coefficients effectively eliminated mutual inductive voltage, and also it is expected to improve performance of CDA+MIK method for quench detection of KSTAR PF coils.

An integral crank driven Stirling cryocooler is solidly based on concepts of direct IR detector mounting on the cryocooler’s cold finger, and the integral construction of the cryocooler and Dewar envelope. Performance factors of the cryocooler depend on operating conditions of the cryocooler such as a cyclic mean pressure of the working fluid, a rotational speed of driving mechanism, a thermal environment, a targeted operation temperature and etc.. At given charging condition of helium gas, the cyclic mean pressure of helium gas in the cryocooler changes with temperatures of the cold end and the environment. In this study, effects of the cyclic mean pressure of helium gas on performances of the Stirling cryocooler were investigated by numerical analyses using the Sage software. The simulation model takes into account thermodynamic losses due to an inefficiency of regenerator, a pressure drop, a shuttle heat transfer and solid conductions. Simulations are performed for the performance variation according to the cyclic mean pressure induced by the temperature of the cold end and the environment. This paper presents P-V works in the compression and expansion space, cooling capacity, contribution of losses in the expansion space.