The Effect of Strain on the Transport Properties of Superconducting Strand and Cable in a Conduit Conductor

A proper understanding of the degradation of the transport properties of cable-in-conduit conductors (CICCs) due to a changing strain distribution or to crack formation in the filaments is essential to determine the operational limits of the conductors and to optimize their design. Based on the electrical and strain properties of the superconducting strand, the performance of short samples of the CICC can be analyzed, such as the ones tested in the SULTAN facility, or the full-size CICC used in real magnets. Mathematical fitting expressions are proposed to implement strand properties into the cable model. In combination with the strain maps generated by the mechanical model MULTIFIL, these expressions are introduced in the electromagnetic code JackPot to predict the current sharing temperature of the CICC of the international thermonuclear experimental reactor (ITER) Central Solenoid. A comparison is made with SULTAN short samples tests as well.