Influence of the heat-treatment conditions on various types of multifilamentary Nb-46.5%Ti superconducting wires

Abstract

Unlike the NbTi superconducting wires used for high critical current density, NbTi wires for Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) magnets have larger and fewer NbTi monofilaments and different cross sections, which show different superconducting properties. This study investigated the effects of varying the temperature, number of heat-treatment cycles, and total strain over a wide range for multifilamentary Nb-46.5%Ti wires on a mass production scale for use in MRI magnets. The heat-treatment conditions were optimized for an NbTi superconducting wire and the critical current density and the n-value were measured as functions of the final strain at temperatures of 4.2 K and 7 T. We noticed that the superconducting properties increased with increasing final strain of the multifilamentary NbTi wire. The microstructure and the effects of the size and the distribution of α-Ti precipitates on the individual heat-treatment steps were observed by using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). We, consequently, found the heat-treatment conditions that provided the highest superconducting performance for the two types of NbTi wires used in this study, and the results of the study are expected to very helpful in establishing not only the heat-treatment conditions but also important manufacturing parameters, such as the total strain, even as the design of NbTi wires for used in MRI magnets as changing with industrial demand.