A Preliminary Study on a New Epoxy Resin IR-3 for High-Field Superconducting Magnet Applications

Epoxy resins are commonly used in high field superconducting magnets for electrical insulation and mechanical reinforcement. However, many of the epoxy systems for vacuum pressure impregnation (VPI) techniques show drawbacks like easy cracking at low temperatures, short pot life, and/or low glass transition temperatures (
T
_g
),
etc
. High-field dipole magnets are under development at the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) for the pre-study of future high-energy accelerators. Finding the most appropriate epoxy is critically important. Herein, a new epoxy resin (named IR-3) is developed. Its potting properties including thermal shock, viscosity,
T
_g
, and mechanical strength before and after radiation are presented and were compared with CTD-101K which is mostly used in accelerator magnets. Additionally, the thermal and electrical characteristics of high-temperature superconductor (HTS) coils encapsulated with these epoxies were also investigated. The results show that IR-3 is a promising encapsulating material for impregnating HTS coils and has the potential application in high field accelerator magnets.