Statistical analysis of the degradation of 2223-BSCCO tapes aged under mechanical stress by the Weibull function

Specimens of 2223-BSCCO tapes were subjected to mechanical aging, with their voltage-current (V-I) characteristic measured at different aging times. Two types of mechanical stresses were applied: cyclic (vibration) and static. Probability distributions were obtained from V-I data by numerical-analytical differentiation, and the Weibull function was used to fit the cumulative and density probability distributions thus obtained. It is shown that the time behavior of the parameters of the Weibull functions thus obtained provides useful information on the level and kind of degradation.