Ramping Operation of the Conduction-Cooled High-Temperature Superconducting Magnet for an Active Magnetic Regenerator System

An active magnetic regenerator (AMR) system requires fast ramp rate of magnetic field variation. The magnetic field change enables a magnetic refrigerant to create magnetocaloric effect for magnetic refrigeration. In this paper, a conduction-cooled high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnet has been thermally analyzed and tested for an AMR system. A GdBCO conductor insulated with polyimide tape was wound by dry winding and standard double-pancake coil method. Stycast 2850FT was applied to the edge of the tape conductor so that the cooling plates, which were located at the top and bottom of the coil, should effectively cool the magnet. The whole thermal bridging between the magnet and a two-stage GM cryocooler is analyzed by the numerical simulation and a Joule heating experiment of the HTS magnet at normal state. The inductance of the HTS magnet was measured as 350 mH. The HTS magnet is intended to be operated with maximum 1 T/s at 20 K, cooled by the cryocooler. A solenoid switch and an external dump resistor were employed in order to discharge the HTS magnet. A continuous ramping operation test was conducted with a 60-A peak current and a maximum 20-A/s ramp rate by 3-kW dc power supply. This paper describes the experimental results of the ramping operation of the HTS magnet for an AMR system, and the technical issues on the results are discussed.