Effect of current sharing on the stability of transposed superconductors subject to rapid heat pulses

A network model of a cabled superconductor that effectively incorporates the crossover resistance and the resistance between parallel strands has been used to obtain equations describing the motion of the currents in a cabled conductor when a region goes normal. These have been solved numerically, in conjunction with the heat flow equations appropriate to a fast pulse of heat applied at the edge of the conductor and the additional stability due to current sharing evaluated. I find that the crossover conductance is much less effective than the parallel conductance in enhancing stability. A current diffusion constant can be defined in terms of an effective resistance and an effective inductance for the cable. Current sharing is only significant in enhancing stability when this diffusion constant exceeds the thermal diffusion constant.