Establishment of an easy Ic measurement method of HTS superconducting tapes using clipped voltage taps

The critical current, Ic of HTS superconducting tapes can be measured by transport or contactless method. Practically, the transport method using the four-probe method is the most common. In this study, a simple test procedure by clipping the voltage lead taps have been introduced instead of soldering which reduces time and effort and thereby achieving a much faster measurement of Ic. When using a pair of iron clips, Ic value decreased as compared with the measured one by standard method using soldered voltage taps and varies with the width of the clipped specimen part. However, when using a pure Cu clip, both by clipping and by soldering voltage taps give a comparable result and Ic measured are equal and close to the samples specification. As a result, material to be used as voltage clip should be considered and should not influence the potential voltage between the leads during Ic measurement. Furthermore, the simulation result of magnetic flux during Ic measurement test showed that the decrease of Ic observed in the experiment is due to the magnetic flux density, By produced at the clipped part of the sample by the operating current with iron clips attached to the sample.