Development of 1-T Class Force-Balanced Helical Coils Using REBCO Tapes

The authors proposed the concept of the force-balanced helical coils (FBC) using high-temperature superconducting (HTS) tapes as a feasibility option for superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES). Although the FBC can minimize the mechanical stresses induced by the electromagnetic forces, the FBC has three-dimensional complex shapes of helical winding. Therefore, when the tensile strain and the complex bending strain simultaneously apply to the HTS tapes, the critical current of the HTS coils may decrease irreversibly. The objective of this work is to clarify the critical current property of REBCO tapes depending on the applying complex mechanical strain due to the winding process, the winding configuration and the electromagnetic forces through the development of the HTS-FBC. As a first, design parameters of 1-T class FBC using REBCO tapes and coil winding trajectory were introduced, and the authors discussed the normalized critical current of the HTS-FBC for complex uniaxial strain distribution. The authors also reported a development of a helical winding machine whose motion was optimized to prevent from decreasing the critical current of the HTS tapes during winding process.