This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been
fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TASC.2016.2516100, IEEE
Transactions on Applied Superconductivity
0407PP0457
Design and Test of Superconducting Persistent
Current Switch for Experimental Nb3Sn
Superconducting Magnet
Chunyan Cui, Junsheng Cheng, Shunzhong Chen, Lankai Li, Xinning Hu, Qiuliang Wang
AbstractA superconducting persistent current switch with an
off-state resistance of 10 for an experimental Nb3Sn
superconducting coil has been designed, fabricated and tested.
The superconducting switch is thermal controlled consisting of
the bobbin of brass, the non-inductive superconducting winding,
the heater and the support bar. A temperature sensor is fixed in
the bobbin to monitor the temperature of the superconducting
switch. The superconducting switch operates in 4.2 K
temperature connected in parallel with the power supply and the
experimental Nb3Sn superconducting coils. One GM cryocooler is
employed to cool down the whole system. Based on the finite
element method, the numerical simulations of the switching
performance of temperature distribution during heating and
cooling cycles are performed. The results of the closed loop
operation show that the switch can successfully operate in the
conduction cooled magnet. The maximum closed loop current is
170 A.
Index TermsClosed loop operation, Conduction cooled
magnet, Superconducting persistent current switch
I. INTRODUCTION
A S ONE of
the key technologies of 500 MHz NMR magnet,
Nb3Sn coil manufacture technology is being developed in
our laboratory [1]-[2]. The central magnetic field of a
500MHz NMR magnet is 11.75 T which cannot be achieved
by entire NbTi superconducting coil. As we know the upper
critical magnetic field of NbTi is about 10 T. Therefore Nb3Sn
compound superconductor is a good choice due to the upper
critical magnetic field, which is higher than 20 T. Usually
NbTi coil and Nb3Sn coil are combined to produce a high
magnetic field.
The high field homogeneity and stability are required for a
NMR superconducting magnet. A stability of better than 0.01
ppm/hr is the general requirement which is difficult to be
achieved by the commercial available power supply with
certain level ripple. Therefore the persistent current mode with
persistent current switch is the best choice to meet the
requirement of high stability for superconducting magnet [3]-
[6].
This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China, Grant 51107135 and 50577063 and the Instrument
Developing Project of China, Grant ZDYZ010-2.
The authors are with the Institute of Electrical Engineering, Chinese
Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190 China, (e-mail: ccyan@mail.iee.ac.cn;
jscheng@mail.iee.ac.cn;chenshunzhong@mail.iee.ac.cn;lkli@mail.iee.ac.cn;
xininghu@mail.iee.ac.cn;qiuliang@mail.iee.ac.cn).
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1
An experimental Nb3Sn superconducting magnet was
fabricated in our laboratory to study the manufacture
technology which was expected to be inserted into a set of
NbTi alloy superconducting coils with 10 T central field to
compose a superconducting magnet system with about 12 T
central magnetic field. The central magnetic field of the
inserted Nb3Sn coil is to be 2 T when the current is 150 A. The
experimental coil was placed in a conduction-cooled cryostat
with a GM cryocooler providing cooling power. Persistent
current mode operation was performed by a persistent current
switch. For the conduction-cooled superconducting switch, the
lack of liquid helium limits the amount of heat generated by
the switch during the ramping period of the magnet and the
recovery period of the switch. Therefore, a unique
superconducting switch is needed to design for the
experimental magnet.
In this paper, a conduction-cooled superconducting switch
was designed, fabricated and tested for an experimental Nb3Sn
inserted coil.
II. DESIGN AND FABRICATION
A. Working Principle
Superconducting persistent current switch (PCS) also called
as superconducting switch is the important component of the
persistent current mode. Superconducting switch is electrically
with the external power supply as well as with the
superconducting magnet in parallel. Fig.1 shows the schematic
diagram of the circuit in which the direction of the arrow
represents the positive direction of the current. The Nb3Sn coil
and the superconducting switch coil are thermally connected
to the second-stage cold head of the cryocooler to keep
temperature of the coils low enough.
The superconducting switch has two states on and off.
The state on means that the superconducting switch is in a
superconducting state and off means that it is in a normal
state. The switch is wound with bifilar-winding for low self-
inductance near to zero. The heater is also wound in a bifilar
manner and has very good thermal contact with the
superconducting wire to reduce the thermal resistance.
The charging process of the magnet with the
superconducting switch is as follows: 1) Turn on the heater for
one minute and the switch is in off state; 2) Turn on the
superconducting power supply to charge the coil to the
operation current; 3) Turn off the heater for one minute and
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Transactions on Applied Superconductivity
0407PP0457 2

Ip Magnet Power Supply

Superconducting Switch
Is

Superconducting Superconducting
Joint Joint
Superconducting Coil

Im

Cryocooler Cold Head

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the magnet circuit with superconducting switch. Fig. 2. Structure of the superconducting switch.

the switch is in on state and the resistance is zero; 4)
Gradually reduce the current of the magnet power supply to
zero while current of the superconducting switch is equal to
that of the magnet; 5) Pull out the detachable current lead and
the magnet is in persistent current operation.
The discharging process is as follows: 1) Gradually increase
the current of the magnet power supply to the operation
current of the magnet while the current of the switch is zero; 2)
Turn on the heater for one minute and the switch is in off
state; 3) Gradually reduce the current of the magnet power
supply to zero while the current of the magnet is equal to zero;
4) Turn off the heater; 5) Pull out the detachable current lead
and the discharging process ends.
B. Design of the Superconducting Switch
As shown in Fig.2, the conduction-cooled superconducting
switch consists of the bobbin, non-inductive superconducting
winding, the heater and the support bar. A temperature sensor
is fixed in the bobbin to monitor the temperature of the
superconducting switch.
During the charging, the magnet is ramped with a voltage
Vramp. The voltage is limited by the following equation [7]:
dI
Lm= Vramp Ir
dt
Where I is the current of the magnet; r is the resistance of
the leads and the joints in circuit.
During ramping, the voltage is also imposed across the
switch which is in the normal mode and in parallel with the
superconducting magnet. If the switch resistance is Rs, the
heating power Qs of the switch is determined by:
2
Vramp
Qs =
Rs
Since the heating dissipation in the switch is inversely
proportional to the normal state resistance of the switch, a high
resistance is desirable. For the experimental conduction-
cooled Nb3Sn coil, the thermal energy of the switch will
impose an extra load on the cryocooler and if excessive, can
cause the magnet to quench. Therefore, the normal state
resistance of the switch should be relatively large. If the
superconductor with copper matrix is used for the switch, the
required conductor length would be too long because of the
lower resistance rate of copper. This will result in high heat
capacity for the switch and slow recovery into the
superconducting state. Therefore, the superconductor NbTi
with copper nickel matrix is used for the switch due to the
higher electrical resistance of copper nickel. The NbTi/CuNi
wire from Oxford Superconducting Technology (OST) with
the diameter of 0.5 mm is used for the switch. Because the
designed operation current is about 500 A, 3-strand cable is
made from the above mentioned switch conductor. The
specification of this cable is listed in Table I. The value of the
residual resistance ratio RRR is measured to be 1.153.
TABLE I SPECIFICATION OF SWITCH SUPERCONDUCTOR
Model 3-strand cable
Strand bare diameter 0.5 mm
Cable insulated diameter 0.574 mm
Number of filaments 54
Matrix Cu-30%Ni
CuNi:NbTi 1.35:1
Strand Ic @4.2 K 220 A@5 T
Insulation Formvar
Twist 25-55 mm
(1)
Resistance per Meter 0.83
RRR295 K:10 K 1.153
If the ramping voltage is limited to 1 V, the heating
power should be less than 0.1 W. The calculated resistance of
the switch is more than 10 . The length of 3-strand cable for
the switch is 12.1 m. The MnCu wire with the diameter of 0.2
mm is used for the heater. The resistance of MnCu wire is
(2)
13.69 /m and the length of this wire for the heater is
calculated as 7.3 m.
One end of the support bar is connected to the switch and
the other end to the bobbin of the second stage cold head of
the cryocooler. When the switch is heated from on to off,
the support bar is expected to act as a bad thermal conductor
to reduce the heating load. When the switch is cooled from
off to on, the support bar is expected to act as a good
thermal conductor to shorten the cooling time. Therefore, the
support bar is made of brass. If the temperatures at the two
ends of the support bar are T1 and T2, the heating power Q

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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TASC.2016.2516100, IEEE
Transactions on Applied Superconductivity
0407PP0457
transferred on the support bar is determined by
A
= Q (T2 T1 )
(3)
Where is the average thermal conductivity; A is the
cross-section area and l is the length of the bar.
The average thermal conductivity of brass between 4 K
and 77 K is 26 W/mK. According to (3), the ratio of A/l can
be calculated. The length of the bar is 120 mm and the
diameter is 10 mm.
C. Fabrication of the Superconducting Switch
The superconducting switch is fabricated from as many
turns as are necessary to achieve the desired resistance in the
off state and to provide sufficient heat capacity to the switch
to avoid damage when the switch is in the normal state.
Because operated in the conduction-cooled mode, the bobbin
of the switch is made of copper. The bobbin is cylindrical in
shape with the length of 46 mm and the diameter of 48 mm.
On the bobbin, a blind hole with the depth of 15 mm and the
diameter of 3 mm is used to install the low temperature sensor
which can monitor the temperature of the switch as well as
judge the state of the switch. In order to reduce the self-
inductive of the superconducting switch winding, the
NbTi/CuNi superconducting wire is wound on the bobbin with
bifilar-winding. Due to the large radius of curvature and
elasticity, the superconducting cable is difficult to be fixed on
the bobbin after being folded from the midpoint. Therefore, a
separate bobbin with S type groove on one end of the
bobbin is designed. As shown in Fig.3, the bobbin consists of
a round end plate and a cylindrical tube only with a flange at
one end. On the end without flange of the tube, an S type
groove is carved with the width of 2 mm and the depth of 2
mm. After folded from the midpoint, the superconducting
cable is embedded in the S type groove. Then the ground
end plate is connected on the tube to press the cable with four
screws. Along the outlet direction of the groove, the two ends
of the cable are wound on the bobbin bifilarly.
The winding thickness is about 5 mm for 3 layers of
superconducting cables and the total turn is about 96. The
heater with one layer of MnCu wire with total turn of about 50
is wound on the surface of the superconducting winding. The
MnCu wire is used for the heater due to its virtually zero
temperature coefficient of resistance value and long term
stability. The heater is also in bifilar manner for lower
inductance. The resistance of the heater is about 100 to
generate the heat power of 0.1 W at the current of 32 mA.
The kapton is used as insulator between the heater and cable,
cable and bobbin. Different from the switch immersed in
liquid helium, the conduction-cooled switch is not with the
adiabatic part. DW-3 which is a type of polyurethane modified
epoxy is used as heat conduction between the bobbin and
cable, cable and cable, cable and heater. The switch is
connected on the second stage cold head of the cryocooler
through the support bar with the diameter of 10 mm and length
of 120 mm. According to the thermal conductivity of brass,
the power of 0.1 W can heat the temperature of the switch
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3
3
1 1
2
4
5
4
Fig.3. The separated bobbin for the switch. 1- cylindrical tube only with a
flange at one end; 2- S type groove; 3- round end plate; 4-cable; 5- screws.
over than 10 K and can heat the NbTi to be normal state. The
thermal power is not conducted to the magnet and not induces
the temperature rise in the magnet.
III. PERFORMANCE TESTS
The switch, Nb3Sn coil and the flexible NbTi current leads
are connected in parallel by superconducting joints. Three
types of wires are connected together which are Nb3Sn wire
with Cu matrix, NbTi/Cu wire for the current lead and
NbTi/CuNi cable. The superconducting solder matrix
replacement method is adopted to fabricate the
superconducting joints as shown in Fig.4.
The switch and the experimental Nb3Sn coil with the room
temperature resistance of 27 and the inductance of 0.0367 H
were placed in a conduction-cooled cryostat with a GM
cryocooler used to provide cooling power. The testing cryostat
is top-opened and sealed by a flange with multilayer thermal
radiation shields. The current leads consist of HTS leads and
NbTi wires. NbTi wires serving as lower parts of the current
leads were bound to a copper rod which was bolted the second
stage cold head of the cryocooler to keep enough low
temperature of NbTi wires. One end of HTS current leads
were solded with NbTi wires and the other end were
connected to the current terminals on the flange through
copper rod. This kind of current leads connection can reduce
Joule heat losses at the different temperature ranges in the
cryostat. Voltage taps were set on the superconducting joints.
A Hall probe is mounted in the bore of the Nb3Sn coil to
measure the magnetic field generated by the coil. Through the
measured magnetic field, it can be judged if the coil was
operated in persistent current mode. The test cryostat is shown
in Fig.5.
Fig.4. Nb3Sn coil and the switch connected with superconducting joints.
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Transactions on Applied Superconductivity
0407PP0457 4

TABLE II RELATION BETWEEN HEATER CURRENT AND

SWITCH TEMPERATURE
Heater Current /mA 13 15 16 17 20 23 25 30
Switch Temperature/K 6.7 6.9 7.3 8.1 8.4 8.9 9.8 10.2

Fig.5. Test cryostat for the persistent current operation.

According to the measured RRR value of 1.153, the room

temperature resistance of 10 becomes to 8.7 . The
ramping rate is 0.1 A/s with an AMI superconducting power
supply with maximum current of 200 A. Fig.6 shows the
relationship between the heater current and the normal state
resistance of the switch. When the heater current is 13 mA, the
switch can be in off state normally. When the current
increases to 30 mA, the resistance of the switch is saturated.
During the test, the heater current is 25 mA because the self-
heating is generated by the switch winding. On the other hand,
the temperature of the switch can reflect the state of on or
off. Before ramping, the current is flowing into the heater
and the heating power generated by the heater will cause the
temperature of the switch to rise. The relationship between the
heater current and the temperature of the switch is listed in
Tabel II. The minimum heater current to make the switch in
off state is 13 mA. Several currents were achieved closed-
loop operation and the maximum closed-loop current is 170 A
with the magnetic field of 1.41 T. As shown in Fig.7, the
persistent current operation test lasted 19 hours stably. Due to
the precision limit of the Hall probe, the magnetic field
attenuation was not detected in the test. So the persistent
current operation test did not continue. During the test, the
switch performed according to its design.
Fig. 6. Relationship between heater current and switch resistance.
Fig. 7. Magnetic field measured in the persistent mode.
IV. CONCLUSION
The design of the superconducting switch operated in
conduction-cooled magnet is different from this of liquid
helium cooled magnet. The heat load from the switch during
the ramp should be small enough so that the second stage cold
head of a crocooler can handle it. The criteria are: 1) to be
able to ramp the magnet in a relatively short time such as
less than two hours in our experiment; 2) to be able to
close the switch in a relatively short time after the ramp,
such as twenty minutes in our experiment; 3) to produce
less heat during ramp. A superconducting switch for an
experimental Nb3Sn coil was designed, fabricated and tested
in a conduction-cooled cryostat. The switch can achieve
persistent current operation successfully. The tested maximum
persistent current is 170 A and the magnetic field is 1.41 T.
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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TASC.2016.2516100, IEEE
Transactions on Applied Superconductivity
0407PP0457 5

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