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Practical Superconductors

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Superconductivity

Part of the book series: Springer Series in Materials Science ((SSMATERIALS,volume 214))

Abstract

All superconductors exhibit thermal and EM instabilities because of their poor thermal conductivity and worst electrical conductivity in their normal state. These instabilities lead to premature quench in superconducting magnets. To circumvent the problem, practical superconductors are produced in the form of fine filaments in high conductivity copper matrix. Most popular superconductor Nb–Ti had been produced this way by co-processing it with Cu and used universally up to a field of 9 T. To meet the stringent requirement of high J c and low ac losses for accelerator and fusion reactor magnets, impressive improvements have been made in the production techniques. Conductors with fine filaments smaller than 1 µm cladded with diffusion barriers, with low filament spacing to dia. ratio (~0.15), resistive matrix to reduce filament coupling and low fraction of Cu have been produced. Conductors carrying large J c of the order of 50 kA in Rutherford and CICC (cable-in-conduit conductor) configuration have been produced. For future accelerators and fusion reactors high field A-15 Nb3Sn superconductor cables have been produced by bronze technique, internal tin (IT) method, improved distributed tin (DT) method and the jelly roll (JR) methods. The DT technique has yielded Nb3Sn wire with 2–3 µm filament dia. with J c = 105 A/cm2 (12 T, 4.2 K) and ac loss = 300 kJ/m3 (±3 T, 4.2 K) suitable for ITER application. JAERI has produced CICC Nb3Al cable by JR technique which produces a field of 13 T at a current of 46 kA. NRIM, KEK and FNAL are jointly developing Nb3Al Rutherford cable (14 × 1.84 mm) using 27 strands prepared by the so called JR-RHQT (rapid heating quench technique) for the luminosity upgradation of the LHC. V3Ga conductors too are being developed by PIT technique for the future Demo fusion power reactor to take care of the induced radioactivity by the 14 MeV neutrons released by the D + T reaction. HTS like REBCO are being developed to generate ultra high field. A record field of 35.4 T has been reported by NHMFL recently.

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  1. Cryogenics and Applied Superconductivity Laboratory, Inter-University Accelerator Centre, New Delhi, India

    R. G. Sharma

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Sharma, R.G. (2015). Practical Superconductors. In: Superconductivity. Springer Series in Materials Science, vol 214. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13713-1_6

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