Numerical Investigation of Metal Insulation Technique on Turn-to-Turn Contact Resistance of REBCO Pancake Coils

No-insulation (NI) REBCO pancake coils show high thermal stability, however the charging delay is an issue. Hence, to improve the charging delay, it was proposed that a stainless steel (SUS) tape was cowound between turns, called “metal-as-insulation” or “metal-insulation (MI),” to increase the turn-to-turn contact resistivity. The MI technique could make the turn-to-turn contact resistivity approximately 50 times large compared to a conventional NI REBCO pancake coil. This paper reports a bypass current behavior on the cross section of MI REBCO pancake coil using two-dimensional finite element method. The influence of the SUS tape thickness, the MI material, and the number of SUS tapes on the turn-to-turn contact resistivity is investigated. As the result, it is clarified that the turn-to-turn contact resistivity strongly depends on the surface condition and number of SUS tapes.