Nondestructive Testing of High Strength Conductors for High Field Pulsed Magnets

High field pulsed magnets at the NHMFL use high strength conductor wires up to 90% of their ultimate tensile strength. Therefore it is very important to ensure that the wires are free of flaws. It is known that in the conductors' cold drawing process, internal 'chevron' crack could oc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inIEEE transactions on applied superconductivity Vol. 30; no. 4; pp. 1 - 5
Main Authors Lu, Jun, Adkins, Todd, Dixon, Iain, Nguyen, Doan, Han, Ke
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York IEEE 01.06.2020
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subjects
Cold drawing
Computed tomography
Conductors
Destructive testing
Die drawing
Eddy current testing
Eddy currents
Fatigue cracks
Fatigue tests
Glidcop AL60
High strength
Inclusions
Inspection
Magnets
Nondestructive testing
Probes
pulsed magnet
Radiography
Schedules
Surface cracks
Tensile tests
Ultimate tensile strength
Ultrasonic testing
Wire
Wires
X-ray imaging
X-ray radiography
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Summary:High field pulsed magnets at the NHMFL use high strength conductor wires up to 90% of their ultimate tensile strength. Therefore it is very important to ensure that the wires are free of flaws. It is known that in the conductors' cold drawing process, internal 'chevron' crack could occur due to unsuitable drawing die schedule or inadequate lubrication. These internal cracks occurs infrequently along the wire, so tensile tests of short samples cut from the ends of a long length conductor often miss the problem. In addition, small inclusions on the wire surface can compromise wires fatigue properties. In this paper, we present results of our non-destructive testing (NDT) inspection of Glidcop AL60 wires using eddy current testing (ECT), ultrasonic testing (UT) and x-ray radiography (2D and 3D). Chevron cracks were found in some AL60 conductors by all three NDT techniques. Surface inclusions were found by ECT. We have developed a long length ECT wire inspection capability.
ISSN:1051-8223
1558-2515
DOI:10.1109/TASC.2020.2980525