Experimental evidence of considerable stability increase in superconducting windings with extremely high specific heat substances Original Research Article

The influence of rare-earth based intermetallic compounds with very high heat capacities on the transient stability of NbTi superconducting windings was experimentally investigated. The intermetallic compounds CeCu6 and HoCu2 were introduced as filling powders into an epoxy resin based composite in a wet winding process. Doping of about 6 vol.% of such compounds increases minimum quench energies several times even for short (of order of 1 ms) electromagnetic disturbances. The prospects and most promising applications are briefly discussed.