Fabrication of Bi-2212 Canted-Cosine-Theta Dipole Prototypes

The U.S. Magnet Development Program (MDP) is exploring the possibility of combining low- and high-temperature superconductor technologies, using cosine-theta and canted-cosine-theta (CCT) Nb
₃
Sn dipole magnets together with Bi-2212 CCT inserts, with the ultimate goal of constructing a 20-T dipole. The MDP short-term goal is a Bi-2212 CCT insert capable of reaching 5 T in the bore when operating as a stand-alone and 3 T when operating under a background field of 15 T. This paper reports on the fabrication of our BIN4 dipole magnet and our BIN5a and BIN5b coils, designed and built at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to address potential fabrication issues of Bi-2212 coils and verify the design of our 18–20-T dipole magnet. BIN4 is a two-layer 50-cm-long CCT magnet that uses a nine-strand Rutherford cable made with 0.8-mm-diameter Bi-2212 strands. Its goal is to investigate critical current, insulation integrity, manufacturing challenges, and quench protection issues after heat treating both layers together under oxygen at standard atmosphere (1 bar). BIN5a and BIN5b are two identical coils, similar to the outer layer of BIN4, with the difference that the length is 39 cm, and they will undergo 50-bar overpressure processing heat treatment. BIN5 coils are made from the state-of-the-art strand with an engineering critical current density of 1150 A/mm
²
at 4.2 K and 5 T.