De-Lamination Characteristics of Coated Conductor for Conduction Cooled HTS Coil

According to the continuous development of coated conductors and compact cryocoolers, research and development efforts for High Temperature Superconducting (HTS) magnets are increasing using conduction cooling method. To increase the cooling efficiency and thermal stability of the HTS magnet, the coated conductor is wound by wet-winding or epoxy impregnating in vacuum after dry-winding. Due to the large Lorentz force and thermal contraction, stress analysis of the composite material, which is composed of HTS conductor, insulation layer and epoxy layer, is necessary to assure the mechanical stability of the HTS magnets. Mechanical strength for a/b axis, which is parallel to the conductor surface, is usually strong enough to endure the large tensile stress due to the tough substrate material. However, c-axis strength, which is perpendicular to the conductor surface, is not strong enough to ensure the large Lorentz force. The de-lamination of the multi-layered HTS tape in a coil structure can occur and the results were previously reported. Therefore, the test data for allowable c-axis strength is necessary to design the mechanical stability of the HTS coil. This paper describes the experimental results for the c-axis tensile strength of various coated conductors. The results show the wide divergence of the c-axis tension force from 18 MPa to 53 MPa. Through the FEM analysis for multi-layered structure of the HTS tape, concept design for HTS tape of enhanced c-axis strength is suggested.