Mechanical performance of magnet insulation materials fabricated by the “Insulate-Wind-and-React” technique

Superconducting magnet coils are usually fabricated according to the “Wind-React-Insulate-and-Transfer” technique. However, the alternative “Insulate-Wind-and-React” technique could simplify the coil manufacturing process considerably. An insulation system designed for this process has been investigated. It consists of a R-glass fiber reinforcement heat treated at 650 °C and impregnated afterwards with epoxy. For the mechanical material characterization, tensile, short-beam shear (SBS) and tension-tension fatigue tests were employed at 77 K. In addition, half of the SBS samples were reactor irradiated to a neutron fluence of 1 × 1022 m−2 (E > 0.1 MeV) to check for radiation induced material degradation.