Monofilament MgB Wire for a Whole-Body MRI Magnet: Superconducting Joints and Test Coils.

This paper presents recent results from our continued development of a 0.5 T whole-body MRI magnet at the Francis Bitter Magnet Laboratory. HyperTech Research Corp. (Columbus, OH) manufactures the MgB conductor for this project. During the past year, we have found that our technique, originally developed successfully to splice unreacted MgB wires, works much better, i.e., of higher reliability, with unreacted MgB wires. This has led us to wind the entire coil components in our persistent-mode MRI magnet with unreacted monofilament MgB wire, having a MgB core of 0.4 mm in diameter, an overall diameter of 0.8 mm bare, 1 mm S-glass insulated. To verify that these coils would not suffer from flux jumping, as they would if wound with monofilament NbTi wire, magnetization studies were performed on monofilament wires of MgB and NbTi (as a reference) at 4.2 K. For the monofilament MgB wire, the results were affirmative. To further ensure the absence of flux jumping that may quench these current-carrying coils, two test coils were wound with unreacted monofilament MgB wire. One MgB coil was operated in driven mode, while the other MgB coil, equipped with a persistent current switch and terminated with a superconducting joint, was operated in persistent mode. The operating temperature range was 4.2-15 K for these MgB coils. The driven mode coil was operated in self-field. The persistent mode coil achieved a persistent current of 100 A, corresponding to a self-field of 1 T in the winding, for 1 hour with no measurable decay. Both test coils were operated quench free.