Uniaxial strain dependence of the critical current of DI-BSCCO tapes

Osamura, Kozo*; Machiya, Shutaro*; Hampshire, D. P.*; Tsuchiya, Yoshinori*; Shobu, Takahisa  ; Kajiwara, Kentaro*; Osabe, Goro*; Yamazaki, Kohei*; Yamada, Yuichi*; Fujikami, Jun*

In order to explain the effect of uniaxial strain on the critical current of DI-BSCCO-Bi2223 tapes, we employed a springboard sample holder that can smoothly and continuously apply both tensile and compressive strains to tape samples. Over a narrow tensile strain region, the critical current in the tapes decreased linearly with increasing strain and returned reversibly with decreasing strain. In this paper, we clearly characterize the reversible range terminated by both compressive and tensile strains, in which filaments do not fracture. Our analysis of the compressive regime beyond the relaxation strain suggests that although BSCCO filament fracture is the primary factor that leads to a decrease in critical current, the critical current in those regions of filaments that are not fractured increases linearly and reversibly with decreasing applied strain at compressive strains well beyond the reversible region for the tape.