Structural modelling of REBCO CC tapes in TORT cables

High-temperature superconductor devices often need conductors with transport capacity obtained by assembling more REBCO (RE = rare earth, B = barium, C = copper, O = oxygen) coated conductor (CC) tapes in parallel, thus forming a cable. One method of cabling flat REBCO CC tapes is the tape-on-round-tube (TORT) concept. In TORT cables, multiple CCs are wound in a helical fashion on a copper tube, through which the coolant (liquid nitrogen or cold helium vapor) may flow. A detailed structural finite-element (FE) analysis using the FE code ANSYS was carried out to investigate the stress-strain behavior of CC tapes under tension and bending loading during the winding process. In addition to the finite-element method (FEM) investigations, the measurements of critical current dependence on the axial and bending load of REBCO CC tapes at room temperature were performed. Finally, the possibility of the application of FEM simulation to predict the critical loads of REBCO CC tapes subjected to mechanical loading during the winding process is assessed.