Round Robin Test of Critical Current of Superconducting Cable

Abstract

The Japanese national project started on standardization of the test method of the DC critical current of superconducting cables. A round robin test of critical current measurement is carried out to survey underlying problems for the standardization. The sample cables are made of Bi-2223 tapes and the inner core conductor has two layers and the outer shield conductor is composed of a single layer. The diameter of the shield layer is about 40 mm and the length of the cable is 2.00 m. The critical current was determined by the electric field criterion of 1 μV/cm. The <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">n</i> value is also measured for the inner core and the outer shield conductor. Three institutes participated in the test for two sample cables. The obtained experimental relative standard deviation for the critical current at 77.30 K is in the range of 0.2 to 1.3%, and is sufficiently small. Hence, it can be said that the present method that is widely used is suitable as a standard test method. On the other hand, the experimental relative standard deviation of the value is in the range of 2.8 to 18.6%, which is relatively large. This is caused by the measurements done at different temperatures.