Electrical, Mechanical and Thermal Characterization of Bi-2223/AgAu Material for Use in HTS Current Leads for W7-X

The superconducting magnet system of the W7-X stellarator presently under construction at the Max-Planck-Institute for Plasmaphysics in Greifswald, Germany, requires 7 pairs of current leads for a maximum current of 18.2 kA. The Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe is responsible for construction, manufacturing and performance testing of the current leads prior to installation in the W7-X machine. To reduce the overall cooling power for the refrigerator as well as the free convection problem due to the upside-down orientation of the leads, it was decided to use HTS material in the temperature range between approx. 5 K and 60 K. The optimization of the HTS part requires to know exactly the electrical, mechanical and thermal parameters of the HTS material. Actually two suppliers, EHTS and Sumitomo offer such Bi-2223/AgAu material. Single tapes as well as stacks were used to measure the critical current as a function of applied magnetic field for various temperatures. The thermal conductivity, the stress-strain dependence and the thermal contraction were also measured. In the paper the electrical, mechanical and thermal performance of different tapes and stacks will be described and discussed.