Noncontact measurement of transient potential distribution in superconducting cable

To measure transient potential distribution in a superconducting wire or ca ble after quench, some voltage taps are usually soldered with the sample co nductor. However, the thermal and electromagnetic environment in the sample may be disturbed by the soldering of the voltage taps. As a method which c an solve such problems, a noncontact measurement system with capacitance di viders is devised. It is experimentally found that our proposed method enab les us to detect the quench initiation point and measure the propagation ve locity of normal zone without any disturbances. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science L td. All rights reserved.