Preparation and properties of in-situ prepared filamentary Nb/sub 3/Sn-Cu superconducting wire

Conference · Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1980

OSTI ID:7011528

Finnemore, D K; Verhoeven, J D; Gibson, E D; Ostenson, J E

Work at the Ames Laboratory on the in-situ process for preparing Cu-Nb-Sn superconducting wire is reviewed. The results of this work show that consumable arc casting appears to provide a low cost and reliable method for preparing dendritic Cu-Nb alloys suitable for the large scale production of superconducting wire. Casting procedures for 5 cm dia billets were studied and good performance characteristics were found. In addition, preliminary results with 10 cm dia castings look promising and scale up to this size seems likely to be successful. The major problem in scaling up may be to keep the dendrite size large enough to prevent excessive coarsening. The new methods for Sn introduction were developed, a single core process for small diameter wire and a multicore process for large diameter wire. The overall J/sub c/ and strain performance characteristics are well suited to large scale dc magnets in the 8 to 14 tesla range. The ac losses in these materials in the 0 to 3T range are approximately equivalent to continuous filament wire with a filament dia of 40 ..mu..m. Twisting of the wire gives a substantial improvement in the ac losses but the addition of Ni to decouple the fibers does not look encouraging because an immiscibility occurs near 3% Ni. The proximity effect coupling of the fibers will decrease substantially with increasing magnetic fields so this contribution to the ac losses should be much lower at large ..mu../sub 0/H. (LCL)

• Research Organization: Ames Lab., IA (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-82
• OSTI ID: 7011528
• Report Number(s): IS-M-291; CONF-800587-6; TRN: 81-001950
• Resource Relation: Conference: International cryogenic materials conference, Upton, NY, USA, 28 May 1980
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
SUPERCONDUCTING WIRES
AC LOSSES
FABRICATION
PERFORMANCE
COPPER ALLOYS
GRAIN SIZE
NIOBIUM ALLOYS
TIN ALLOYS
ALLOYS
CRYSTAL STRUCTURE
ENERGY LOSSES
LOSSES
MICROSTRUCTURE
SIZE
WIRES
420201* - Engineering- Cryogenic Equipment & Devices
360101 - Metals & Alloys- Preparation & Fabrication