Abstract
Under disturbances, superconductors may experience sudden, most undesirable phase transitions (quench) from superconducting to normal conducting state. Quench may lead to damage or even to catastrophic conductor failure. A superconductor is stable if it does not quench. In this paper, superconductor stability provides a methodical background for numerical investigations of the time dependence of phase transitions. Finite Element and Monte Carlo methods are applied to multi-filament, BSCCO 2223 and to thin film, coated YBaCuO 123 superconductors. Focus is on (i) transient temperature distributions under multi-component internal heat transfer (solid conduction and, in thin films, radiation), on (ii) a suggested operator method to solve the completeness problem of radiative transfer, and (iii) on time dependence of the order parameter obtained from a quantum-mechanical model. Explanation of the localizability of disturbances and their impacts in thin films are additional problems. These investigations shall contribute to improve understanding the physics behind the stability problem, in particular if under disturbances the material is already close to a phase transition. Traditional stability models cannot provide this information.
NSTL
Elsevier