Texture in Superconducting Magnet Constituent Materials and Its Effect on Elastic Anisotropy

The materials used in superconducting magnet coils and in the structural magnet constituents are textured to various extents. This causes an angular dependence of the Young’s moduli that needs to be taken into account when predicting the stress and strain distribution in the magnets. We have measured by neutron diffraction the texture in metallic materials typically used in superconducting magnets. Based on the neutron diffraction data the elastic anisotropy of the different materials has been calculated. Among the materials studied, the extruded Al oxide dispersion strengthened Cu coil wedges exhibit the strongest elastic anisotropy of 37%. The Young’s moduli calculated from single crystal elastic constants and grain orientation distributions are compared with highly accurate Young’s moduli derived experimentally from resonance tests.