Plastic Deformation Simulation of REBCO Tapes Using Particle Methods

Ultra-high field superconducting magnets are facing a mechanical degradation problem. On 2017, a world-record high DC magnetic field of 45.5 T was generated by insert no-insulation (NI) Rare-Earth Barium Copper Oxide (REBCO) pancake coils (14.4 T), called “LBC3”, and an outsert resistive magnet (31.1 T). Although the experiment showed a high potential of the NI REBCO magnets for ultra-high field generation, the insert NI REBCO pancake coils and the REBCO tapes were plastically deformed. The critical current properties of damaged REBCO tapes were degraded although the Hastelloy substrate of REBCO tapes is stiff and it has a high yield point of approximately 1 GPa. However, the mechanisms of the damaging REBCO tapes are not clarified. Therefore, it is necessary to clarify the mechanical phenomenon of REBCO tapes. In this paper, we model a REBCO tape with a smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method, which can represent plastic deformation. The SPH simulation is coupled with electromagnetic analysis with a partial element equivalent circuit (PEEC) model which we have previously developed. In the simulation, an external field, which linearly increases to 5 T and then decreases to 0 T, is applied to a short-length REBCO tape. The simulation results show that the REBCO tape largely deforms during the external field excitation and deexcitation.