Calorimetric study of the thermal conductivity of superconducting tapes: experimental method and simulations

The method consists in the monitoring of the temperature variation of a sup erconductor tape subjected to a trapezoidal current pulse. Simulations of t he experiment were performed using the lumped capacitance model and also th e two dimensional finite element method. Both were successful in reproducin g the sample's reactions to the heat pulse. This increases our understandin g of the propagation of internally generated heat in superconductors and wi ll facilitate, for example, the study of AC losses in these materials. The thermal conductivity deduced from the measurements are consistent with the literature. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.