Magnetization of the joint-free high temperature superconductor (RE)Ba2Cu3Ox coil by field cooling

Joint-free (RE)Ba2Cu3Ox (REBCO) coil based on ‘wind-and-flip’ technique has been developed to generate a persistent magnetic field without power supply. This paper is to study the magnetization characteristics of the joint-free REBCO coil by field cooling, in order to trap higher field. A joint-free pancake coil is wound by REBCO tapes and the field cooling magnetization test is performed on it. An approximate numerical model based on H-formulation is built for this coil to analyze its magnetization behavior, which is validated by the experimental results Analysis show that a persistent direct current is induced in the coil during the field cooling operation, which generates the trapped field. The induced current of the joint-free coil shows an intrinsic non-uniform distribution among turns. Increasing the magnetization field and critical current of REBCO conductors can considerably increase the trapped field. But the trapping factor (the rate of trapped field to background magnetization field) reaches a maximum value (60 % for the test coil). This maximum value is an intrinsic characteristics for a fabricated coil, which only depends on the coil’s geometry structure. With a same usage of REBCO tapes, the trapping factor can be improved significantly by optimizing the coil structure to multiple pancakes, and it can approach 100 %.