An effective thermal conductivity and thermomechanical homogenization scheme for a multiscale Nb3Sn filaments

Abstract

A comprehensive study of the multiscale homogenized thermal conductivities and thermomechanical properties is conducted towards the filament groups of European Advanced Superconductors (EAS) strand via the recently proposed Multiphysics Locally Exact Homogenization Theory (LEHT). The filament groups have a distinctive two-level hierarchical microstructure with a repeating pattern perpendicular to the axial direction of Nb3Sn filament. The Nb3Sn filaments are processed in a very high temperature between 600 and 700°C, while its operation temperature is extremely low, −269°C. Meanwhile, Nb3Sn may experience high heat flux due to low resistivity of Nb3Sn in the normal state. The intrinsic hierarchical microstructure of Nb3Sn filament groups and Multiphysics loading conditions make LEHT an ideal candidate to conduct the homogenized thermal conductivities and thermomechanical analysis. First, a comparison with a finite element analysis is conducted to validate effectiveness of Multiphysics LEHT and good agreement is obtained for the homogenized thermal conductivities and mechanical and thermal expansion properties. Then, the Multiphysics LEHT is applied to systematically investigate the effects of volume fraction and temperature on homogenized thermal conductivities and thermomechanical properties of Nb3Sn filaments at the microscale and mesoscale. Those homogenized properties provide a full picture for researchers or engineers to understand the Nb3Sn homogenized properties and will further facilitate the material design and application.

Keywords

• nb3sn filaments
• thermal conductivity
• thermomechanical analysis
• hierarchical microstructures
• multiphysics locally exact homogenization theory
• multiscale homogenization