Superconductivity as a tool for solid mechanics

摘要

Consortium de Recherche pour l' Emergence des Technologies Avancees, Institut Neel CNRS et Universite Joseph Fourier, BP 166, F-38042 Grenoble Cedex 9, France The critical current, a key parameter characterizing the performances of coated conductors (CCs), can be used to probe the plasticity behavior of their metallic substrates. More generally, transport measurements in the superconducting state improve the usual electrical methods employed in solid mechanics to monitor cracks growth and velocity toward higher precisions without any calibration step. The particular case of the development of Luder bands in a CC Hastelloy substrate is studied via the damaging of the fragile DyBCO superconducting layer deposited on the top of it. Magneto-optics completes the macroscopic data obtained from transport measurements by local morphological observations.