Earticle

Recently, Research and development activity of HTS (High Temperature Superconducting) power application is very progressive worldwide. Especially, HTS cable system and HTSFCL (HTS Fault current limiter) system are proceeding to practical stages. In such system and equipment, cryogenic cooling system, which makes HTS equipment cooled lower than critical temperature, is one of crucial components. In this article, cryogenic cooling system for HTS application, mainly cable, is reviewed. Cryogenic cooling system can be categorized into conduction cooling system and immersion cooling system. In practical HTS power application area, immersion cooling system with sub-cooled liquid nitrogen is preferred. The immersion cooling system is besides grouped into open cycle system and closed cycle system. Turbo-Brayton refrigerator is a key component for closed cycle system. Those two cooling systems are focused in this article. And, each design and component of the cooling system is explained.

This study presents a simple method to control the seed orientation which leads to the various growth characteristics of a single grain REBCO (RE: rare-earth elements) bulk superconductors. Seed orientation was varied systematically from c-axis to a-axis with every 30 degree rotation around b-axis. Orientations of a REBCO single grain was successfully controlled by placing the seed with various angles on the prismatic indent prepared on the surface of REBCO powder compacts. Growth pattern was changed from cubic to rectangular when the seed orientation normal to compact surface was varied from c-axis to a-axis. Macroscopic shape change has been explained by the variation of the wetting angle of un-reacted melt depending on the interface energy between YBa2Cu3O7-y (Y123) grain and melt. Higher magnetic levitation force was obtained for the specimen prepared using tilted seed with an angle of 30 degree rotation around b-axis.

This study presents three dimensional (3-D) seeding technique which is a modification of interior seeding. 3-D seeding is beneficial for shortening the processing period and enhancing the magnetic properties of REBCO bulk superconductors fabricated by melt growth. Oxygen channels were provided by using divided powder compacts instead of by using a rubber insert. Microstructure observations revealed that the grains grown from the seeds impinged each other and formed low angle grain boundaries of (001)/(001). It has been shown that the 3-D seeding technique reduces the volume fraction of a-c growth sector and thereby maximizes the area of a-b growth sector which attribute to the high magnetic characteristics of single grain REBCO bulk superconductors.

Cryogenic milling which is a combined process of low-temperature treatment and mechanical milling was applied to fabricate high critical current density (Jc)MgB2 bulk superconductors. Liquid nitrogen was used as a coolant, and no solvent or lubricant was used. Spherical Mg (6-12 μm, 99.9 % purity) and plate-like B powder (~ 1 μm, 97 % purity) were milled simultaneously for various time periods (0, 2, 4, 6 h) at a rotating speed of 500 rpm using ZrO2 balls. The (Mg+2B) powders milled were pressed into pellets and heat-treated at 700°C for 1 h in flowing argon. The use of cryomilled powders as raw materials promoted the formation reaction of superconducting MgB2, reduced the grain size of MgB2, and suppressed the formation of impurity MgO. The superconducting critical temperature (Tc) of MgB2 was not influenced as the milling time (t) increased up to 6 h. Meanwhile, the critical current density (Jc) of MgB2 increased significantly when t increased to 4 h. When t increased further to 6 h, however, Jc decreased. The Jc enhancement of MgB2 by cryogenic milling is attributed to the formation of the fine grain MgB2 and a suppression of the MgO formation.

In superconducting coil applications particularly in wet wound coils, coated conductor (CC) tapes are subjected to different type of stresses that could affect its electromechanical transport property. These include hoop stress acting along the length of the CC tape and the Lorentz force acting perpendicular to the CC tape’s surface. Since the latter is commonly associated with the delamination problem of multi-layered REBCO CC tapes, more understanding and attention on the delamination phenomena induced in the case of coil applications are needed. Difference on the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of each constituent layer of the CC tape, the bobbin, and the impregnating materials is the main causes of delamination in CC tapes when subjected to thermal and mechanical cycling. In the design of degradation-free superconducting coils, therefore, characterization of the delamination behaviors including mechanism and strength in the multi-layered REBCO CC tapes becomes a critical issue. Various trials to increase the delamination strength by improving interface characteristics at interlayers have been performed. In this study, in order to investigate the influences of laser cleaning and Ag annealing treated at the substrate side surface, transverse tensile tests were conducted under different sample configurations using 4.5mm x 8 mm upper anvil. The mechanical delamination strength of differently processed CC samples was examined at room temperature (RT). As a result, the Sample 1 with the additional laser cleaning and Ag annealing processes and the Sample 2 with additional Ag annealing process only showed higher mechanical delamination strength as compared to the Sample 3 without such additional treatments. Sample 3 showed quite different behavior when the loading direction is to the substrate side where the delamination strength much lower as compared to other cases.

The use of electronic devices such as mobile phones and tablet PCs has increased of late. However, the power which is supplied through wires has a limitation of the free use of devices and portability. Magnetic-resonance wireless power transfer (WPT) can achieve increased transfer distance and efficiency compared to the existing electromagnetic inductive coupling. A superconducting coil can be applied to increase the efficiency and distance of magnetic-resonance WPT. As superconducting coils have lower resistance than copper coils, they can increase the quality factor (Q-factor) and can overcome the limitations of magnetic-resonance WPT. In this study, copper coils were made from ordinary copper under the same condition as the superconducting coils for a comparison experiment. Superconducting coils use liquid nitrogen to keep the critical temperature. As there is a difference of mediumbetween liquid nitrogen and air, liquid nitrogen was also used in the normal conductor coil to compare the experiment with under the same condition. It was confirmed that superconducting coils have a lower reflection- coefficient(S11) than the normal conductor coils.

To protect the power systems from fault current, the rated protective equipment should be installed. However growth of power system scale and concentration of loads caused the large fault current in power transmission system and distribution system. The capacities of installed protective equipment have been exceeded the due to increase of fault current. This increase is not temporary phenomenon but will be steadily as long as the industry develops. The power system operator need a counter-measurement for safety, so superconducting fault current limiter (SFCL) has been received attention as effective solutions to reduce the fault current. For the above reasons various type SFCLs have been studied recently. In this paper, operation characteristics and power burden of trigger type SFCL is studied. The trigger type SFCL has been used for real system research in many countries. Another trigger type SFCL (double quench trigger type SFCL) is also studied. For this paper, short circuit test is performed.

The role of current lead in high-temperature superconducting synchronous machine (HTSSM) is to function as a power supply by connecting the power supply unit at room temperature with the HTS field coils at cryogenic temperature. Such physical and electrical connection causes conduction and Joule-heating losses, which are major thermal losses of HTSSM rotors. To ensure definite stability and economic feasibility of HTS field coils, quickly and smoothly cooling down the current lead is a key design technology. Therefore, in this paper, we introduce a novel concept of a cooling anchor to enhance the cooling performance of a metal current lead. The technical concept of this technology is the simultaneously chilling and supporting the current lead. First, the structure of the current lead and cooling anchor were conceptually designed for field coils for a 1.5 MW-class HTSSM. Then, the effect of this installation on the thermal characteristics of HTS coils was investigated by 3D finite element analysis.

In this paper, the current limiting characteristics of the transformer type superconducting fault current limiter (SFCL) with the two coupled secondary windings due to its winding direction were analyzed. To analyze the dependence of transient fault current limiting characteristics on the winding direction of the additional secondary winding, the fault current limiting tests of the SFCL with an additional secondary winding, wound as subtractive polarity winding and additive polarity winding, were carried out. The time interval of quench occurrence between two superconducting elements comprising the transformer type SFCL with the additional secondary winding was confirmed to be affected by the winding direction of the additional secondary winding. In case of the subtractive polarity winding of the additional secondary winding, the time interval of the quench occurrence in two superconducting elements was shorter than the case of the additive polarity winding.

Discrepancy between a power supply current and an actual “spiral” coil current makes the conventional 4-probe measurement of a critical current (Ic) of a no-insulation (NI) high temperature superconductor (HTS) coil inaccurate and time-consuming. This paper presents a fast and accurate approach for Ic measurement of NI HTS coils. With an NI HTS coil energized at a constant ramping rate, a complete analytic expression for the spiral coil current was obtained from a first-order partial differential equation that derived from an equivalent circuit model of the NI coil. From the analytic solution, both spiral coil current and radial leak current can be obtained simultaneously, which enables fast and accurate measurement of the NI coil Ic. To verify the proposed approach, an NI double-pancake (DP) coil, wound with GdBCO tapes of 6 mm × 0.1 mm, was constructed and its Ic was repeatedly measured with various ramping rates in a bath of liquid nitrogen at 77 K. The measured results agreed well with the calculated ones, which validates the proposed approach to measure Ic of an NI HTS coil.

In superconducting power devices including power cables in which high temperature superconducting (HTS) tapes are utilized, a reliable electrical insulation should be achieved for its maximum performance. For an efficient design of HTS superconducting devices, a comparative evaluation of the mechanical and thermal propperties for various insulation materials at cryogenic temperatures is required. Especially, in the process of the property evaluation of the sheet-shaped insulation materials, anisotropy according to the machining direction should be considered because the mechanical and thermal properties are significantly influenced by the sample orientation. In this study, the cryogenic thermal and mechanical properties of various insulation material sheets such as PPLP, Cryoflex, Teflon, and Kapton were determined considering sample orientation. All samples tested at cryogenic temperature showed significantly higher tensile strength as compared with that of room temperature. The ultimate tensile strength at both temperature conditions significantly depended upon the sample orientation. The thermal properties of the insulation materials exhibited a slight difference among samples depending on the orientation: for the PPLP and Cryoflex, the CD orientation showed larger thermal contraction up to 77 K as compared to the MD one. MD samples in PPLP and Cryoflex showed a lower CTE and thermal contraction which made it more promising as an insulation material due to its comparable CTE with HTS CC tapes.