Critical Currents of MgB2 Wire and Tape in Magnetic Field under Bending Deformations

Abstract

Nowadays MgB2 wires are attractive for designing real devices like motors and magnets. The latest production technologies allow to increase critical current value of wires. However, there is a problem of wire performance degradation under bending strain. Thus, there is a problem of manufacturing solenoids with small diameters, especially from ex situ MgB2 wires produced by powder-in-tube (PIT) technology. In this work, influence of bending on critical current Ic multifilament PIT ex situ MgB2 tape and wire has been studied. Critical current dependencies on external magnetic field Ic(H) were measured at liquid helium temperature in the range of fields from 2.5 T up to 8 T. Measurements were carried out in parallel (H||), and perpendicular (H⊥) orientation of external magnetic field to the sample surface. Voltage current characteristics (V-I) on tape samples were measured with bending on diameters D=30; 40; 60; 70; 80; 90;100mm. It was shown that critical current density (Jc) decreases by 24% and by 28% for tape and wire respectively with decreasing bending diameter from 100mm to 60mm. It was found that the tape still had superconductive properties even with bending diameter D=30mm, but its Jc decreased by 44% in comparison with Jc(D=100mm). One more feature that was found is the appearance of resistive component in the voltage current characteristics for all bend diameters in magnetic fields H>3.5 T.