Earticle

This article reviews the recent activities of field testing and application of superconducting fault current limiters (SFCL) based on high-temperature superconductors (HTS). The review particularly focuses on the trends in the field tests in terms of the technical aspects and commercial activities of the SFCLs. Stimulated by the discovery of HTS, numerous research and development activities have been conducted worldwide for SFCLs operating from distribution voltages to transmission voltages. Different types of SFCLs have been developed and field-tested. Consequently, more than 20 field tests and applications have been performed on real grids worldwide while supplying electric power to the customers. These field tests have not only provided the track records of the operation experiences including the problems and maintenance during operation, but also proved their current limiting capabilities against real faults, rendering this new technology highly viable. Through these activities, the following trends in the status of field testing and application are observed. Resistive-type SFCLs with HTS-coated conductors were dominantly used in the most recent field tests. This implies that the resistive type is technically more mature than the other types. Bus-bar coupling and transformer feeders were the major application locations. It is of importance that most of the field applications were conducted as R&D projects. A relevant change from the R&D stage to the application stage is shown as recently deployed SFCLs are expected to be under long-term operation and commercial service. Here, we review the installation of these SFCLs by substation. This review also discusses the recent activities for their commercial applications.

Design of Reverse Stirling Cycle based refrigerator can be predicted by Schmidt theory as a useful tool and by experiment it is found that for practical purposes the power and efficiency predicted by this analysis are about 35% of the actual values. Therefore, appropriate provision is to be made for getting the realistic result with the minimum deviation. The present paper first investigates the suitability of application of Schmidt design analysis for standard ZIF-1002 and PLN-106 Single cylinder Cryogenerator model. As the result is found to be optimistic, the same design procedure is applied for the design of a separate Cryogenerator for generating a cooling effect which is sufficient to produce 7 kg per hour liquid nitrogen using an indigenous condenser of 80% effectiveness. The paper describes all the details of the design methodologies and relevant results are found to be satisfactory.

We report a method for improving heat exchange between cryo-cooled large-power- dissipation devices and liquid cryogen. Micro-machined monolithic heat sinks were fabricated on a high integration density superconducting Josephson device, and studied for their effect on cooling the device. The monolithic heat sink showed a significant enhancement of cooling capability, which markedly improved the device operation under large dc- and microwave power dissipation. The detailed mechanism of the enhancement still needs further modeling and experiments in order to optimize the design of the heat sink.

Superconducting nanowire single photon detectors (SNSPD) have become the most competent photon-counting devices in wide range of wavelengths. Especially in the communication wavelength (infrared), SNSPD has shown unbeatable superior performance compared to the state-of-art semiconductor single photon detectors. The technology has matured enough for the last decade so that several commercial systems are now almost ready for routine use in general optics experiments. Here we summarize briefly the recent progress in this research field, and hope to motivate further research on the improvement of the device and the system. We cover the basic key concepts, device and system performances, remaining issues and possible further research directions of SNSPD.

The promising characteristics of 2G high-temperature superconductor (HTS) coated conductor (CC) tapes have made it possible to apply to various electrical device applications. In this study, the mechanical and electromechanical properties of Sn-Cu double layer stabilized GdBCO CC tapes have been characterized. The stress and strain tolerances of Ic in GdBCO CC tapes adopting stainless steel substrate were evaluated using Ic-strain measurement at 77 K under both uniaxial tension and monotonic bending conditions. The results were compared to the conventional single Cu layer stabilized CC tape. As a result, the Sn-Cu double layer stabilized GdBCO CC tapes showed somehow lower or comparable electromechanical properties as compared to the Cu stabilized CC tape ones.

European R&D on designing their version of a DEMO fusion tokamak has recently resulted in the testing of a prototype Nb3Sn Cable-in-Conduit Conductor (CICC) for the DEMO TF coil. The characteristics and reported results of low temperature performance tests with the prototype CICC sample are compared with those from CICC samples incorporating other recent Nb3Sn cable designs. The EU-DEMO TF CICC prototype shows performance characteristics similar to that of the ITER CS CICC with short twist pitch. This is a first for a CICC sample that does not have a circular cross section. Assessment of its internal magnetostatic self-field suggests that a reduction in the internal self-field due to the rectangular geometry of the EU-DEMO TF CICC prototype compared to one with a circular geometry may have contributed to the performance characteristics showing current sharing temperature (Tcs) initially increase then stabilize with repeated electromagnetic loading, similarly to ITER CS CICC results. However, constraints on the internal self-field are not a sufficient condition for this Tcs characteristic to occur.

This paper analyzed the fault current limiting characteristics of the previously proposed transformer superconducting fault current limiter (TSFCL) interruption system according to its transformer type. The TSFCL interruption system is an interruption technology that combines a TSFCL, which uses a transformer and a superconductor, and a mechanical DC circuit breaker. This technology first limits the fault current using the inductance of the transformer winding and the quench characteristics of the superconductor. The limited fault current is then interrupted by a mechanical DC circuit breaker. The magnitude of the limited fault current can be controlled by the quench resistance of the superconductor in the TSFCL and the turns ratio of the transformer. When the fault current is controlled using a superconductor, additional costs are incurred due to the cooling vessel and the length of the superconductor. When the fault current is controlled using step-up and step-down transformers, however, it is possible to control the fault current more economically than using the superconductor. The TSFCL interruption system was designed using PSCAD/EMTDC-based analysis software, and the fault current limiting characteristics according to the type of the transformer were analyzed. The turns ratios of the step-up and step-down transformers were set to 1:2 and 2:1. The results were compared with those of a transformer with a 1:1 turns ratio.

This paper presents a conceptual design and analysis for a 1-kW-class high-temperature superconducting rotating machine (HTSRM) rotor. The designed prototype is a small-scale integration system of a HTSRM and a HTS contactless rotary excitation device (CRED). Technically, CRED and HTSRM are connected in the same shaft, and it effectively charges the HTS coils of the rotor field winding by pumping fluxes via a non-contact method. HTS coils in rotor pole body and toroidal HTS wire in CRED rotor are cooled and operated by liquid nitrogen in cryogen tank located in inner-most of rotor. Therefore, it is crucial to securely maintain the thermal stability of cryogenic environment inside rotor. Especially, we critically consider not only on mechanical characteristics of the rotor but also on cryogenic thermal characteristics. In this paper, we conduct two main tasks covering optimizing a conceptual design and performing operational characteristics. First, rotor parameters are conceptually designed by analytical design codes. These parameters consider to mechanical and thermal performances such as mechanical strength, mechanical rigidity, and thermal heat losses of the rotor. Second, mechanical and thermal characteristics of rotor for 1-kW-class HTSRM are analyzed to verify the feasible operation conditions. Hence, three-dimensional finite element analysis (3D-FEA) method is used to perform these analyses in ANSYS-Workbench platform.