Performance Evaluation of Electrically-Conductive Epoxy Composites for Racetrack Coil Application

The no-insulation (NI) winding method is widely known for its ability to improve the stability of high-temperature superconducting (HTS) coils by allowing the current to bypass the local hot spot during a quench. However, one major drawback of this method is the occurrence of charge and discharge delays due to current leakage between winding turns. To address this limitation, an impregnation technique has recently been proposed, in which the contact resistance is controlled through the use of an electrically-conductive epoxy composite. This approach has shown the potential to reduce the charge/discharge delays while maintaining the inherent quench protection of NI HTS coils. Following this study, this paper aims to evaluate the proposed impregnation technique in a racetrack HTS coil, which is widely used in applications such as superconducting motors and generators. This study involves t…