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Abstract REBa $$_2$$ 2 Cu $$_3$$ 3 O $$_{7-\text {x}}$$ 7 - x (REBCO, RE = rare earth)-coated conductor is a competitive option in terms of current-carrying capacity and high-stress durability in developing high-field magnets for nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) research. Meanwhile, a technical challenge in utilizing a stand-alone REBCO NMR magnet is an unexpected difference in the field uniformity between the designed and measured values after being constructed and charged, i.e., harmonic errors. Bortot et al., and Li et al., reported analytic evidence of the related issue. However, sufficient research has not yet been conducted, so evidence should be supplemented further. Here we report harmonic errors due to screening current and inconsistent conductor thickness, confirmed by a 400 MHz 1H NMR magnet development project. The magnet was first charged up to its operating current, and then multiple overcharge-discharge cycles were applied, which was an empirically optimized operation protocol. A field mapping device obtained magnetic fields at designated locations in the room-temperature bore. The result showed over 100 ppm field uniformity difference between designed and measured values. A simulation model was developed considering screening current and inconsistent conductor thickness for reproducing the field distribution. Comparison of voltages and fields between simulation and measurement validated the model. Further analysis of the overcharge-discharge effect on harmonic errors demonstrated that even and odd-order harmonics are mainly attributed to screening current and geometric inconsistency while confirming the limitation of the screening current mitigation effect. Hence, we concluded that the desirable requirement of the sub-ppm level field uniformity generation might be barely possible with the current REBCO NMR magnet design approach.

The effects of a gap at a high temperature superconducting magnet which has an insert magnet and an outsert magnet are examined. Both magnets consist of pancake windings. The optimum gap of an insert magnet and an outsert magnet are calculated by using the response surface method. The insert magnet consists of 8 YBCO pancake windings. The number of turns of a pancake winding and the inner diameter of the insert magnet are 60 turns and 40 mm, respectively. The outsert magnet consists of 12 BSCCO-2223 pancake windings. The number of turns of a pancake winding and the inner diameter of the outsert magnet are 100 turns and 115 mm, respectively. The calculation results show the optimum gap of the insert magnet and the outsert magnet are 0 and 10.3 mm, respectively. When there is a gap of 10.3 mm in the outsert magnet the central magnetic field increased by 11.4% from 604.2 to 542.6 mT. RSM is proved to be an effective mean for finding optimum gaps in a shorter time comparing with other non-deterministic optimization technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]