Earticle

Since the fiber reinforced polymeric (FRP) composites are considered in next generation of space transportation systems, reliable thermal expansion properties should be well provided for structural design of composite materials. To obtain accurate mechanical behaviors at a cryogenic temperature, precise strain measurement and calibration must be provided. In this work, apparent strains (or thermal output) of temperature self-compensated strain gages were deliberately investigated for epoxy, CTBN modified epoxy and carbon fabric composite system from room temperature to liquid nitrogen temperature. Also, fourth-order thermal output curves were presented for the further calibration. The results showed that the thermal output is heavily dependent on test materials and a large amount of apparent strains were observed for the polymer resins.

For many large-scale applications of high-temperature superconducting materials, large critical current density(Jc) in high applied magnetic fields are required. A number of methods have been reported to introduce artificial pinning centers(APCs) in YBa2Cu3O7-δ(YBCO) films for enhancement of their Jc. In this work, we investigated electric characteristic of YBCO films on SrTiO3 (100) substrates whose surfaces were modified by the introduction of Au nanoparticles (AuNPs). Au nanoparticles were uniformly dispersed on STO substrates with one of typical solution techniques, self assembled monolayer. After heating the STO substrates with Au nanoparticles, the size of Au nanoparticles was around 29~32 nm in height and 41~49 nm in diameter. XRD diffraction patterns taken on the YBCO film with Au nanoparticles show the c-axis orientation. The measured Tc of YBCO /AuNPs films was around 89K and the Jc was 0.75 MA/cm2 at 65 K and 1 T.

Important key technologies of high-Tc superconducting (HTS) transformer may include the HTS wire technology, bushing technology, cooling technology, AC loss, reduction technology, large current technology, and cryogenic temperature insulation technology. From among others, the cryogenic temperature insulation technology may be specifically a core technology for ensuring reliability for the smaller size, stability, economic efficiency, and power supply of a transformer. Therefore, the electric insulation technology of a superconducting transformer should be prerequisite. Such relevant studies are ongoing, but still, they are very insufficient for establishing the cryogenic insulation technology as of yet. Therefore, this paper simulated HTS transformer applied with continuous transposed conductor (CTC), which has been studied as a way of reducing AC loss. Also, the paper analyzed the insulation configuration of HTS transformer and bushing, and, accordingly, reviewed various characteristics of insulation breakdown out of liquid nitrogen. Thus, the paper constituted insulation database, and it is going to design the insulation of a transmission class HTS transformer and bushing.

For large scale power applications of HTS conductor, it is getting more important to have a stacked HTS coated conductor with low loss and large current capacity. But it was not easy to measure some electric properties. Stabilizer free YBCO CC for striated/ stacked conductors is easily burned out during the measurement of the critical current density because it has no stabilizer and it is difficult to set-up the current lead and voltage taps because it has many pieces of YBCO CC in a conductor. Instead of direct measuring the critical current of a stacked HTS coated conductor, indirect estimation from measuring a magnetization loss of HTS coated conductor could be useful for practical estimation of the critical current. The magnetization loss of a superconductor is supposed to be affected by a full penetrating magnetic field, and it tends to show an inflection point at the full penetrating magnetic field when we generate the graph of magnetization loss vs. external magnetic field. The full penetrating magnetic field depends on the shape of the conductor and its critical current density, so we can estimate the effective critical current density from measuring the magnetization loss. In this paper, to prove the effectiveness of this indirect estimation of the critical current, we prepared several different kinds of YBCO CC(coated conductor) including a stacked conductor short samples and measured the magnetization losses and the critical currents of each sample by using linked pick up coils and direct voltage measurement with transport current respectively.

A cryogenic insulation technique for a high voltage and a large current capacity of a conductor are now two big issues in a field of recent R&D projects of superconducting power devices, especially a superconducting power transformer. For the large rated currents of the power transformer, it is well known that lots of 2nd generation superconducting conductor, so called coated conductor, should be stacked together with transpositions in order to get an even distributions of the currents. We had come up with an idea of a CTCC (Continuously Transposed Coated Conductor) as a conductor for a large power superconducting transformer, and keep trying to verify the usefulness of the conductor. As one of the efforts of verifying, we prepared and tested a sample CTCC with insulations for high voltage, which includes the epoxy coating and Nomex® wrapping. This paper contains the insulation process and dielectric breakdown test results. We expect the results obtained from this experiment to improve an insulation technique for high voltages in various cryogenic environments[1,2].

22.9 kV HTS cable and FCL will be installed in 154 kV Icheon substation. It is necessary to design a protection system of the substation for a successful application of the HTS devices. This paper proposes a new power protection system for the application of 22.9 kV HTS cable and SFCL to 154 kV Icheon substation in Korea.

For last 10 years, there are big progress and many efforts in the development of HTS power equipments by some country including South Korea. Especially HTS cable system is the strongest candidate among them from the viewpoint of applying to real grid, because of the feature of it, compact and large capacity. In South Korea, transmission level 154kV, the world top voltage class, HTS cable system was installed and has been tested in KEPCO Gochang Underground Cable Test Field since the early of 2010 in order to meet test requirements made by KEPCO, the only grid company in South Korea. The type test of it will be completed by October 2010 and subsequently long-term load cycle test will be performed during 6 months. Also in the near future, KEPCO has a plan to demonstrate transmission level HTS cable system in real grid, in order to meet practical requirements and confirm the feasibility of it. This paper says the test plan of transmission level 154kV HTS cable system and the way how to test it.

Until now some countries including South Korea have made big progress and many efforts in the development of high temperature superconductor (HTS) power equipments. Especially, HTS Cable and superconducting fault current limiter (SFCL) are the strongest candidates among them from the viewpoint of applying to real grid. In South Korea, HTS cable and SFCL have been installed in test fields and tested successfully at Gochang PT Center of KEPCO. In order to meet practical requirements and be feasible in real grid, a demonstration project for HTS cable and SFCL systems, called GENI(green superconducting electric power network at Icheon substation) project, has been initiated to install 23kV HTS cable and SFCL systems in a utility network in South Korea since 2008. Namely, it says the first demonstration project for the application HTS system to real smart grid in South Korea. This paper presents the design and the application plan of the 22.9kV HTS cable and SFCL in 154kV Icheon substation in South Korea with the viewpoint of applying in Smat Grid.

In Korea, 22.9kV hybrid SFCL (Superconducting Fault Current Limiter) has been developed and carried out long-term field tests in Gochagn power test center of KEPCO through DAPAS program. The SFCL will be installed at a distribution line of Icheon substation in Korea. For the successful application, we have to design the specifications considering real power system operation. This paper proposes a concept of the operating current based rms value for the protection coordination with protective delays and studies a proper range of the current in Korean distribution power system.

Acoustic emission (AE) signal from an HTS tape has a low signal to noise ratio, due to the large amount of noise caused by the boiling of the liquid cryogen or mechanical vibration from the cryo-cooler. In an attempt to improve the sensitivity of the AE sensor, Pb(Zr0.54Ti0.46)O3 + 0.2 wt% Cr2O3 + 1.0 wt.% Nb2O5 ceramics sintered at 1200°C was synthesized. In addition, the resonance (fr) and anti-resonance frequencies (fa) were measured using the specimens with various thicknesses (1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5 and 3.0 mm). According to the test results, large AE signals with high frequencies were obtained from the AE sensor fabricated using a piezoelectric disc with a thinner thickness.

This paper presents apparent thermal conductivity of various powder at different vacuum levels for cryogenic insulation. Four kinds of powder insulator are examined by using boil-off calorimetry at pressure range from 50 Torr to 3 mTorr. The first material is perlite which is widely used in cryogenic application. Microsphere is the second one that is recently proposed as a replacement powder for liquid hydrogen storage tanks. It is a hollow sphere made of silica with the diameter in the order of 10 to 100 μm. Popped rice and polystyrene beads are also selected as candidates for powder insulation even though they are polymers. With their porous elliptic and spherical configuration and light density, they demonstrate fairly good thermal insulation performance at pressure range from 50 Torr to 3 mTorr. According to the experimental investigation in this paper, microsphere and polystyrene beads possess promising insulation characteristic as powder insulators and further study is desired.