Magnetizing high-Tc superconducting coated conductor stacks using a transformer–rectifier flux pumping method

Abstract

High-Tc superconducting (HTS) coated conductor stacks have been demonstrated as very promising superconducting permanent magnets (PMs), to be used in applications like rotary motors and levitation devices. In this paper, we present a novel magnetization method to address a key problem in the application of HTS stacks, which is effective magnetization with compact, light and efficient setups. The proposed method, transformer–rectifier flux pumping, uses the mechanism developed for HTS coils to magnetize the modified HTS stacks. The accumulation of flux with time is achieved in the HTS stacks. The results show that the flux pump can effectively magnetize long HTS stacks with a magnetic field applied to a much smaller area. Operational characteristics of the flux pump are experimentally studied and some explanations are proposed for the distinct behaviors observed in the experiments. This study heralds a new direction in the magnetization of superconducting PMs and has the potential to be a practical method for industrial applications.