Detection of AE signals from a HTS tape during quenching in a solid cryogen-cooling system

Abstract The acoustic emission (AE) technique is suitable for detecting the presence of thermal and mechanical stress in superconductors, which have adverse effects on the stability of their application systems. However, the detection of AE signals from a HTS tape in a bath of liquid cryogen (such as liquid nitrogen, LN 2 ) has not been reported because of its low signal to noise ratio due to the noise from the boiling liquid cryogen. In order to obtain the AE signals from the HTS tapes during quenching, this study carried out repetitive quench tests for YBCO coated conductor (CC) tapes in a cooling system using solid nitrogen (SN 2 ). This paper examined the performance of the AE sensor in terms of the amplitudes of the AE signals in the SN 2 cooling system.