Contact resistance increment of no-insulation REBCO magnet during a quench

The lumped-parameter circuit model for a no- insulation (NI) high temperature superconductor (HTS) magnet has been well understood after many experimental and analytic studies over a decade. It successfully explains the non-linear charging behaviors of NI magnets. Yet, recently, multiple groups reported that the post-quench electromechanical behaviors of an NI HTS magnet may not be well explained by the lumped circuit model. The characteristic resistance of an NI magnet is one of the key parameters to characterize the so-called “NI behaviors” of an NI magnet and recently a few groups reported a potential that the characteristic resistance of an NI magnet may substantially vary during a quench. This paper deals with this issue, the increment of contact resistance of the no-insulation (NI) REBCO magnet during a quench and its impact on the post-quench behaviors. A 7 T 78 mm NI REBCO magnet that was previously built by the MIT Francis Bitter Magnet Laboratory was chosen for our simulation to investigate the increment of contact resistance to better duplicate the post-quench coil voltages in the simulation. The simulation results showed that using the contact resistance value measured in the liquid nitrogen test, the magnitude of the current through the coil must be much greater than the critical current. This indicates that the value of the contact resistance should increase sharply after the quench occurs, depending on the lumped circuit model.