arXiv subjects

Hongyu Bai

Publications and source records attributed to Hongyu Bai.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Control of turn-to-turn contact resistivity in resistively insulated REBCO coils

Resistively insulated (RI) REBCO magnets feature short ramp times and low ramp losses while maintaining the advantages of no-insulation coils with high engineering current density and tolerance for defects in the REBCO conductor. Control of the turn-to-turn contact resistivity Rc is key to RI technology. Rc must be sufficiently high to prevent a large transient current, which could result in high mechanical stress during magnet quenches. Meanwhile it must be lower than the quench propagation limit to avoid conductor burn-out during a quench. Therefore, it is critical to control Rc within a suitable range of values which is usually coil specific. Previously, we discovered that Rc between two REBCO tapes with a stainless steel interlayer decreases dramatically with contact pressure cycling by up to three orders of magnitude. This drastic change made it impossible to design a suitable Rc value for a stainless steel co-wound RI magnet. In this work, we first present methods for mitigating Rc pressure cycling sensitivity. We found that by adding conductive fillers, such as conductive paste or epoxy, the Rc load cycling sensitivity is largely mitigated. For dry-wound coils, Rc load cycling sensitivity is mitigated by coating REBCO tape with a layer of 2- 3 um of PbSn solder. In addition, Rc can be controlled by oxidizing the stainless steel co-wind tape by heating stainless steel tapes at different temperatures in air. Using above methods, short sample tests showed that Rc was controlled to prescribed values of 1000 and 5000 uOhm-cm2 and was not sensitive to contact pressure cycling up to 30,000 cycles at 4.2 K. The new Rc control method was applied to a 6 double-pancake test coil which was tested at 4.2 K. The Rc in this test coil was comparable with the short sample results. This demonstrated the ability of this new method to control Rc in large coils.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2025

Observation of REBCO delamination in the resistive insulation nested coils

The REBCO coated conductor has the potential to be widely used in ultrahigh field magnets. It is well known, however, that it is not mechanically strong against delamination in the direction normal to its surface due to its intrinsic layered structure. Therefore, conductor delamination is one of the major design challenges for REBCO magnet coils. As a part of the development of the 40 T all-superconducting magnet at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, USA (NHMFL), a dry-wound resistive-insulation-nested-coils (RINC) was designed to reach 25.8 T. It used surface-treated stainless-steel tape as a co-wind to control the turn-to-turn contact resistance, and was fabricated and tested in a liquid helium bath. During the test, two of the double pancake modules exhibited resistive transitions at a current significantly lower than the designed value. The postmortem inspection of the REBCO conductor of these modules by reel-to-reel magnetization at 77 K found sections of very low critical current. Further investigations of one section by chemical etching, visual inspection, and electron microscopy revealed that conductor of this section was delaminated. We present the detailed findings of these postmortem characterizations. The implication of this type of delamination for future magnet designs will be discussed.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2024

Residual resistance ratio of Cu stabilizer in commercial REBCO tapes

Residual resistance ratio (RRR) of Cu stabilizer in REBCO coated conductor is an important design parameter for REBCO magnets. In this work, we measured RRR of electroplated Cu stabilizer in commercial REBCO tapes. Over 130 samples were measured for the quality assurance programs of REBCO magnet projects at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, USA (NHMFL). The average RRR value was above 50. In order to investigate the factors that influence RRR, several samples were analyzed by using scanning electron microscopy, secondary ion mass spectroscopy, and inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy. We found that, in our samples, RRR was strongly correlated with the grain size. We demonstrated that RRR was primarily determined by grain boundary resistivity. Lower RRR was also strongly correlated with higher concentration of chlorine impurity. This is explained by that higher chlorine impurity hindered the grain growth in the room temperature self annealing process resulting smaller grain. Smaller grain resulted in lower RRR. In addition, thermal annealing significantly enhanced RRR. An activation energy of 0.4 eV was obtained from the annealing experiment which corresponds to the activation of Cu grain growth.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2024

REBCO delamination characterization by 90 degree peel test

REBCO tape has successfully used in ultra-high field magnets. Mechanically, it is very strong in its length direction but is prone to delamination in the thickness direction. In an epoxy impregnated REBCO magnet, thermal strain alone could delaminate the conductor. Even for dry wound REBCO coil, a conductor with very low delamination strength is still a concern. Therefore, it is important to characterize the delamination strength of the conductor. In the past decade, significant progresses have been made in the characterization of REBCO delamination strength. Among several developed characterization methods, the 90 degree peel test is simple to setup and seems to offer reproducible results. Therefore, this test could be used as a reliable method to characterize the relative delamination strength of REBCO tapes for quality control purposes. This paper presents our development of 90 degree peel test method for quality assurance test of the 40 T all-superconducting magnet project at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. We investigated the factors that influence the test results, such as thickness and RRR of the copper layer. We found that peel strength increases with decreasing Cu thickness. We also found that peel strength is positively correlated with RRR of the copper. Despite these effects, 90 degree peel test is still a valuable quality assurance tool to evaluate delamination strength for large volume of tapes with the same copper thickness.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2023

Effects of Wax Impregnation on Contact Resistivity Between REBCO Tapes

Advances on no-insulation REBCO coil technology has made understanding and controlling contact resistivity increasingly im-portant. Praffin (wax) impregnation is a process that has been used for improving mechanical stability of insulated and no-insulation REBCO coils. Wax impregnation is beneficial in both no-insulation coils and insulated coils with additional copper sta-bilizer or multiple conductors. In the latter scenario, contact re-sistance between conductor and additional stabilizer is also im-portant. It is crucial to understand the effects of wax impregna-tion on contact resistivity (Rct). We designed and built an appa-ratus to use short REBCO samples which simulates the behavior of Rct in a pancake coil during the wax impregnation process. Rct was measured at 77 K before and after the wax impregnation. In addition, a single pancake coil was wound to test the effect of wax impregnation. This coil simulates the NHMFL 32 T magnet Coil A in winding stresses. Rct was measured at 77 K and 4.2 K before and after wax impregnation. We found that wax impregnation does not significantly change contact resistivity. This means that wax impregnation can be used in coils without compromising the current sharing ability between turns. The experimental process and results are discussed.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2023

ab-plane tilt angles in REBCO conductors

Critical current (Ic) of REBCO tapes is strongly aniso-tropic with respect to the orientation of the magnetic field. Usually, Ic is at maximum when the ab-plane of the REBCO crystal is parallel to the magnetic field. In commercial REBCO tapes, it is commonly assumed that the ab-plane is coincide with the tape plane. While in fact, the ab-plane is near but slightly tilted from the tape plane in the transverse direction. To accurately measure Ic as a function of the field angle {\theta} , which is defined as the angle between ab-plane and the magnetic field direction, and to design and fabricate REBCO mag-net coils based on the measured Ic(angle), it is important to measure the tilt angle. In this work, we used x-ray diffraction (XRD) to measure the tilt angles at room temperature for a large number of REBCO conductors made by SuperPower Inc. Transmission electron mi-croscopy (TEM) was also used to investigate the origin of this tilt. The measured data are presented, and the measurement uncer-tainty is discussed.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2021

Oxygen out-diffusion in REBCO coated conductor due to heating

Rare earth barium copper oxide (REBCO) coated conductor has emerged as one of the high Tc superconductors suitable for future ultrahigh field superconducting magnet applications. In the design and fabrication of such ultrahigh field REBCO magnets, it is essential to understand the behavior of REBCO coated conductor. The effect of heating on the properties of commercial REBCO coated conductors is very important for many practical reasons. Nevertheless, a comprehensive study on this effect have not yet been presented in the published literature. This work studies a commercial REBCO coated conductor heat-treated at temperatures between 175 °C and 300 °C for various durations. Critical current and lap joint resistivity were measured at 77 K and 4.2 K for the heat-treated samples. We found that critical current degrades with heat treatment time and temperature. This degradation can be described by a one-dimensional oxygen out-diffusion model with a diffusion coefficient of D = 2.5 x 10-6 exp (-1.17 eV/kT) m2/s. The heat treatment also causes appreciable increase in joint resistivity. Comprehensive structural and chemical analyses were performed on Cu/Ag/RECBO interfaces by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Our electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) study provided direct evidence of oxygen deficiency in the heat treated REBCO samples. In addition, it is found that the oxygen diffused out of the REBCO layer forms mostly Cu2O at both Ag/REBCO and Cu/Ag interfaces. Cu2O is also observed at grain boundaries of the Ag layer. The oxygen out-diffusion model proposed in this work is used to predict REBCO thermal degradation in several engineering scenarios.

cond-mat.supr-con↗