Determination of and -Value of HTS Pellets by Measurement and Simulation of Magnetic Field Penetration

Complete penetration magnetic field BP is a feature of a superconducting sample submitted to an applied magnetic field. It is very important to know this for applications such as an electrical motor or levitation. The electric E-J characteristics of a high-temperature superconductor (HTS) bulk is generally described by a power law. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of the n-value and the applied magnetic field rise rate Vb on the BP of a cylindrical HTS pellet. The numerical results presented come from the resolution of a nonlinear diffusion problem with commercial software. In this paper, cylindrical HTS pellets are submitted to an axial applied magnetic field. With the help of these simulations, a linear relationship between BP , Vb, and the n-value has been found. A comparison between measurements and simulations is done for the magnetization of cylindrical bulk superconducting samples. This comparison allows to determine the critical current density J_C and n-value of the power law E(J) = EC(J/J_C)n. The experiment is based on the direct measurement of the local magnetic field in the gap between two bulk HTS pellets. The field penetration measurements have been carried out on HTS pellets at 77 K by applying increasing magnetic fields with a quasi-constant sweep rate for the axial direction of the applied magnetic field. Two values of complete penetration magnetic field BP have been measured at two different rise rates Vb. The n-value of the real HTS pellet has been deduced.