Degradation in the REBCO Coil Performance for Mechanical Reasons

Abstract

REBCO conductors were commercialized only recently in 2009 and therefore the magnet technology for REBCO conductors remains undeveloped. The major technological problems for REBCO coils encountered thus far are (a) degradation in the superconducting performance for mechanical reasons, (b) difficulty in protecting the magnet in the case of a super-normal transition of the REBCO coil and (c) the enormous effect of a screening-current-induced magnetic field. In this paper, the basic mechanism of degradation in the REBCO superconducting coil performance due to mechanical reasons is investigated through experiments and numerical simulations. Effective remedies for the degradation are also discussed.