STABILITY OF NON-INSULATED AC MULTISTRAND SUPERCONDUCTING CABLES

For AC application, superconducting strands are bundled and twisted to make a cable with targe current capacity, The quench characteristic o f the cable depends on the contact thermal and the contact electrical conductivities between strands, significantly, Also, the inter-strand contact resistance in the case of non-insulated cable and the material of the matrix of each strand have influence on the quench characteris tics. In this paper, the thermal and the electromagnetic behaviors of non-insulated three-strand cable against local disturbances in one str and of multi-strand cables, taking the influence of inter-strand conta ct resistance and its joule heating, and the current redistribution am ong strands into account, are investigated, Particularly, the influenc e of the matrix material of cables on quench process is analytically i nvestigated, and the results which show the influence of the joule hea ting by the contact conductance after local normal transition in one s trand on quench process of whole cable is determined experimentally.