Mechanical Performance Tests of Customized CORC Cable

High temperature superconducting (HTS) CORC cable, wound from ReBCO coated superconducting tapes, have good mechanical performance, flexibility, high current carrying capacity and isotropy. Therefore, CORC cables have important potential in magnets and power applications. In application, the cable will inevitably be subjected to mechanical and electromagnetic stresses. And during the operation cables will probably experience electromagnetic and thermal cycles. To investigate these effects on the performance of CORC cables, the changes in critical current under different bending radii, transverse pressure, and electromagnetic and thermal cycling were tested in liquid nitrogen. The results show that the soft-core sample degraded when the pressure achieved 1.2 kN/m, while the hard-core cable shows a reduction in critical current at a pressure of 7.7 kN/m. The bending measurement on the CORC cable with hard core shows that the critical current degradation occurs when the bending radius is below 45 mm. There is a decrease in critical current in a 3-turn coil wound with a 1.2-meter-long CORC cable, which may be due to mechanical damage incurred during the winding process. The electromagnetic and thermal cycle experiments on the CORC cable made coil caused reversible and irreversible critical current degradation. After a series of cycles, the Ic tended to be stabilized at 90% of original critical current of the CORC cable.