Investigation on the quench characteristics of parallel high temperature superconducting tapes

Abstract The thermal load on high-temperature superconducting (HTS) tapes during quenching poses a threat to the stable operation of superconducting magnets. To protect superconducting coils and cables, this paper investigates the quench characteristics of HTS tapes as a basis. First, coupled with a reduced-dimensional thermal model and current redistribution model, a finite element method (FEM) model based on the 3D T-A formulation for a single HTS tape was built. Taking into account the terminal resistances and circuit inductances, the quench characteristics of parallel HTS tapes can be further analyzed by the field-circuit model. Then, a platform for detecting local quenches was constructed to verify the simulation results, and the experimental procedure was explained in detail, along with the test samples. Finally, we present the quench characteristics of single HTS tape, parallel HTS tapes, and stacked HTS tapes, which were found to be consistent with the simulation results. The parallel structure significantly reduces the risk of local quench compared to a single HTS tape. Due to contact resistances, the quench time of parallel tapes is longer than stacked tapes.