Simultaneously bending and tensile strain effect on critical current in YBCO coated conductors

YBCO coated conductors have been expected for the application to a coil for superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES). In the application to a superconducting coil, the coated conductors experience bending, uniaxial tensile strain and their combined strain. Therefore, the influence of simultaneous bending and tensile strain on critical current should be revealed. In this work, we developed the test method of critical current under such combined strain state. As a result, it was confirmed that compressive pre-bending can improve the stress tolerance of the YBCO coated conductors. On the other hand, compressive bending strain suppresses the initial critical current by the intrinsic strain effect. These results indicate that optimal bending radius should be selected in order to realize superior stress tolerance and high current capacity simultaneously. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.