Modeling and Experimental Validation of Superconductor Tape Rolling

Abstract

Efficient, defect-free manufacturing of high-temperature superconducting (HTS) wires and tapes is critical to a variety of defense and electrical power applications. To contribute to the improvement of these manufacturing operations, an analytical and experimental study of the early stages of the multipass rolling process for transforming HTS wires into tapes was conducted. The rolling process was simulated by a three-dimensional (3D) finite element model that uses the Drucker-Prager Cap plasticity model to represent the powder core and a Von-Mises plasticity model with isotropic hardening to represent the silver sheath. The predicted cross-sectional geometry of the tapes is compared with experiments. The results show that the tape cross-sectional geometry and powder core sizes can be predicted accurately. Further, alternate boundary conditions were found to have minimal effect on the predicted cross-sectional geometry for the range of reductions considered, even though the frictional shear stress distributions were significantly different.