Numerical Simulation of NbTi Superconducting Joint With Cold-Pressing Welding Technology

The cold-pressing welding methods are employed to fabricate joints between NbTi multifilamentary conductors, and a series of joints are made at different press amounts for nuclear magnetic resonance magnet applications. The Abaqus-Explicit method was used to do a quasi-static analysis of the cold-pressing welding process. In the simulation, we consider the contact area and equivalent plastic strain to determine the resistance of the superconducting joints qualitatively. The simulation shows that a press amount of 61%-65.5% should be the optimum range, in which the lowest joint resistance can be obtained. Resistances of these joints are also tested using the current decay method to verify the simulation.