Earticle

The five-year national project in Japan for R&D of coated conductors and applications, named as the Materials and Power Applications of Coated Conductors (M-PACC) project, was finished at the end of FY2013. The project consists of four sub-themes as cable, transformer, SMES and coated conductors. In the theme of coated conductors, the fabrication process had been developed to satisfy the requirements from the applications such as in-field Ic performance, low AC loss in the long tapes etc. Through the project, the remarkable progress was achieved as follows; a high in-field minimum Ic value over 54A/cm-width under 3T at 77K was realized in a 200m long EuBCO tape with artificial pinning centers of BaHfO3 by the pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique on the IBAD template. On the other hand, the AC loss reduction was confirmed in the tapes fabricated by both PLD and the metal organic deposition (MOD) techniques by scribing 100m tapes into 10-filamments. Additionally, the mechanism of the delamination phenomenon was systematically investigated and the strength was improved by eliminating the origins of the weak points in the films. Through the development, all targeted goals were accomplished and the several results were appreciated as a world champion data.

Since the discovery of iron-based superconductors in 2008, extensive and intensive studies have been performed to find the microscopic theory for the high temperature superconductivity in the materials. Electronic structure is the basic and essential information that is needed for the microscopic theory. Experimentally, angle resolved photoelectron spectroscopy (ARPES) is the most direct tool to obtain the electronic structure information, and therefore has played a vital role in the research. In this review, we review what has been done so far and what is needed to be done in ARPES studies of iron-based superconductors in search of the microscopic theory. This review covers issues on the band structure, orbital order/fluctuation, and gap structure/symmetries as well as some of the theories.

We have grown MgB2 on SiC buffer layer by using metallic Hastelloy tape as the substrate. Hastelloy tape was chosen for its potential practical applications, mainly in the power cable industry. SiC buffer layers were deposited on Hastelloy tapes at 400, 500, and 600 oC by using a pulsed laser deposition method, and then by using a hybrid physical-chemical vapor deposition technique, MgB2 films were grown on the three different SiC buffer layers. An enhancement of critical current density values were noticed in the MgB2 films on SiC/Hastelloy deposited at 500 and 600 oC. From the surface analysis, smaller and denser grains of MgB2 tapes are likely to cause this enhancement. This result infers that the addition of SiC buffer layers may contribute to the improvement of superconducting properties of MgB2 tapes.

Magnesium diboride superconductor is still of considerable interest because of its appealing characteristics towards application mainly at around 20 K. Unlike Nb-based superconductors, MgB2 can be operated by cryogen-free cooler which provides a cost effective alternative at low field of around 2-5 T. To explore this operating field region considerable efforts are necessary to marginally improve the superconducting properties of MgB2. Under this situation, even the heat treatment environment during the synthesis is considered as an important factor. The addition of H2 gas in small amount with Ar as a mixed gas during annealing has an adverse effect on the superconducting properties of MgB2. It is although interesting to find that the presence of Mg vapor along with hydrogen during heat treatment results in the appreciable improvement in the flux pinning and the overall response of the critical current density for the ex-situ MgB2 samples.

The critical current, Ic of HTS superconducting tapes can be measured by transport or contactless method. Practically, the transport method using the four-probe method is the most common. In this study, a simple test procedure by clipping the voltage lead taps have been introduced instead of soldering which reduces time and effort and thereby achieving a much faster measurement of Ic. When using a pair of iron clips, Ic value decreased as compared with the measured one by standard method using soldered voltage taps and varies with the width of the clipped specimen part. However, when using a pure Cu clip, both by clipping and by soldering voltage taps give a comparable result and Ic measured are equal and close to the samples specification. As a result, material to be used as voltage clip should be considered and should not influence the potential voltage between the leads during Ic measurement. Furthermore, the simulation result of magnetic flux during Ic measurement test showed that the decrease of Ic observed in the experiment is due to the magnetic flux density, By produced at the clipped part of the sample by the operating current with iron clips attached to the sample.

We report here results of a study of superconductivity in the (Ta1-x Snx)Sr2EuCu2Oz system. We observe resistive superconducting transitions for the samples with x = 0.15-0.3, and the highest superconducting transition has been achieved for the sample with x = 0.2 which reveals onset Tc of 43 K and zero-resistivity of 25 K. Thermoelectric power measurements indicate that Sn doping introduces holes into the system and thereby superconductivity can be achieved in the (Ta1-xSnx) Sr2EuCu2Oz system.

Temperature dependence of magnetic moment (m−T) and the magnetization (M−𝐻) at 5 K and 20 K of the in situ processed MgB2 bulk pellets with/without carbon (C) doping were examined. The superconducting critical temperature (Tc), the superconducting transition width (ΔT) and the critical current density (Jc) were estimated for ten test samples taken from the MgB2 bulk pellets. The reliable m−T characteristics associated with the uniform MgB2 formation were obtained for both MgB2 pellets. The Tcs and ΔTs of all test samples of the undoped MgB2 were the same each other as 37.5 K and 1.5 K, respectively. The Tcs and ΔTs of the C-doped MgB2 were 36.5 K and 2.5 K, respectively. Unlike the m−T characteristics, there existed the difference among the M−H curves of the test samples, which might be caused by the microstructure variation. In spite of the slight Tc decrease, the C doping was effective in enhancing the Jc at 5 K.

In this study we investigated ac transport current losses in the face to face stack for the anti-parallel current flow, and compared the electromagnetic properties with those of the single SC tape as well as those of the same stack for the parallel current path. The gap between the SC tapes in the stack varied in order to verify the electromagnetic influence of the neighbors when current flows in opposite direction, and the model was implemented in the finite element method program by the commercial software, COMSOL Multiphysics 4.2a. Conclusively speaking, the loss was remarkably decreased for the anti-parallel current case, which is attributed the magnetic flux compensation between the SC layers due to the opposite direction of the current flows. As the gap between SC tapes was increased, the loss mitigation became less effective. Besides, the current density distribution is very flat cross the sample width for the narrower gap case, which is believed to be benefit for the power electric system. These results are all in good agreement with those predicted theoretically for an infinite bifilar stack.

In this paper, the general electromagnetic design process of a 10-MW-class high-temperature superconducting (HTS) synchronous generator that is intended to be utilized for large scale offshore wind generator is discussed. This paper presents three-dimensional (3D) electromagnetic design proposal and electrical characteristic analysis results of a 10- MW-class HTS synchronous generator for wind power. For more detailed design by reducing the errors of a two-dimensional (2D) design owing to leakage flux in air-gap, we redesign and analyze the 2D conceptual electromagnetic design model of the HTS synchronous generator using 3D finite element analysis (FEA) software. Then electrical characteristics which include the no- load and full-load voltage of generator, harmonic contents of these two load conditions, voltage regulation and losses of generator are analyzed by commercial 3D FEA software.

High-temperature superconducting (HTS) rotating machines always require an electric current of from several hundreds to several thousand amperes to be led from outside into cold region of the field coil. Heat losses through the current leads then assume tremendous importance. Consequently, it is necessary to acquire optimal design for the leads which would achieve minimum heat loss during operation of machines for a given electrical current. In this paper, conduction cooled current lead type of 10 MW-Class HTS rotating machine will be chosen, a conceptual design will be discussed and performed relied on the least heat lost estimation between conventional metal lead and partially HTS lead. In addition, steady-state thermal characteristic of each one also is considered and illustrated.

HTS power cable bypass the fault current through the former to protect superconducting tapes. On the other hand, the fault current limiting (FCL) power cable can be considered to mitigate the fault current using its increased inductance and resistance. Using the increased resistance of the cable is similar to the conventional resistive fault current limiter. In case of HTS power cable, the magnetic field of HTS power cable is mostly shielded by the induced current on the shield layer during normal operation. However, quench occurs at the shield layer and its current is kept below its critical current at the fault condition. Consequently, the magnetic field starts to spread out and it generates additional inductive impedance of the cable. The inductive impedance can be enhanced more by installing materials of high magnetic susceptibility around the HTS power cable. It is a concept of SFCL power cable. In this paper, a sample SFCL power cable is suggested and experimental results are presented to investigate the effect of iron cover on the impedance generation. The tests results are analyzed to verify the generation of the inductive and resistive impedance. The analysis results suggest the possible applications of the SFCL power cable to reduce the fault current in a real grid.

Measuring an exact amount of remaining cryogenic liquid propellant under microgravity condition is one of the important issues of rocket vehicle. A Pressure-Volume-Temperature (PVT) gauging method is attractive due to its minimal additional hardware and simple gauging process. In this paper, PVT gauging method using liquid nitrogen is investigated under microgravity condition with parabolic flight. A 9.2 litre metal cryogenic liquid storage tank containing approximately 30% of liquid nitrogen is pressurized by ambient temperature helium gas. During microgravity condition, the inside of the liquid tank becomes near- isothermal condition within 1 K difference indicated by 6 silicon diode sensors vertically distributed in the middle of the liquid tank. Helium injection with higher mass flow rate after 10 seconds of the waiting time results in successful measurements of helium partial pressure in the tank. Average liquid volume measurement error is within 11% of the whole liquid tank volume and standard deviation of errors is 11.9. As a result, the applicability of PVT gauging method to liquid propellant stored in space is proven with good measurement accuracy.