Optimization of high-temperature superconductor current leads
- Chonnam National Univ., Kwangju (Korea, Democratic People`s Republic of)
- Argonne National Lab., IL (United States)
- Texas Tech Univ., Lubbock, TX (United States). Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
Methods to improve the performance of high-temperature superconducting current leads are analyzed. Designs are considered that are inherently safe from burnup, even if the lead enters the normal state. The effect of a tapered lead that takes advantage of the increase in critical current density with decreasing temperature will decrease helium boiloff by about a factor of two for an area ratio of four. A new concept, in which Ag powder is distributed in increasing concentration from the cold end to the hot end of the lead in sintered YBCO, is shown to have comparable performance to that of leads made with Ag-alloy sheaths. Performance of the best inherently safe designs is about one order of magnitude better than that of optimized nonsuperconducting leads. BSCCO leads with Ag-alloy sheaths show improved performance for Au fractions up to about 3%, after which increases in Au fraction yield negligible performance improvement.
- Research Organization:
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-31109-ENG-38
- OSTI ID:
- 35401
- Report Number(s):
- ANL/ET/CP-82190; CONF-941013-31; ON: DE95005838; TRN: 95:003187
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Applied superconductivity conference, Boston, MA (United States), 16-21 Oct 1994; Other Information: PBD: [1995]
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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