Magnetic instabilities in Nb/sub 3/Sn strands and cables

This paper describes a model for calculation of magnetic instabilities in superconducting wires with transport current and reports results of instability simulations in Nb/sub 3/Sn strands from different manufacturers. The effect of magnetic instabilities on the strand and cable performance is presented and a criterion for the maximum effective sub-element size of strands for high field magnets is formulated.