Current sharing in multi-stacked HTS solenoid coil

The high-temperature superconducting (HTS) electric equipment using Bi-2223 wire successfully commercialized 1st generation HTS wire, has been developing by many research groups. HTS coil is one of the most important parts in HTS electric equipment. To enlarge the critical current, the operating temperature of the equipment tends to go down and number of HTS wire tends to increase. Thus, it is very important to determine the whole critical current of HTS coil for the stable operation of HTS equipment. The whole critical current of multi-stacked wire of HTS solenoid coil is not equal to the sum of the critical current of each stacked wire because of nonuniform current sharing occurs in multi-stacked HTS wires and each HTS path does not has the same critical current. In this paper, current sharing in two types of 5-stacked HTS solenoid coils, made up of 1 copper layer which is a current buffer layer of HTS coil and 4 HTS wire layers, was analyzed. One was wound with Bi-2223 wire insulated with polyimide tape and the other was wound with noninsulated Bi-2223 wire. All of the Bi-2223 wires were reinforced with stainless steel. The simulation results of current sharing in multi-stacked HTS coils coincided well with the experimental results. Based on these results, the current sharing ratio of large scale HTS coil was also expected. The copper layer acted as a good current path when all the HTS wires were quenched.