Jointless Pancake Coil Winding for Minimizing Electrical Loss in HTS SMES for Wind Power

Many different applications of superconducting devices have been designed using a modular pancake arrangement. It has been reported that this modular pancake structure provides excellent mechanical holding, effective cooling, and high magnetic flux density for stability of the superconducting coil. However, soldering for interconnecting each double pancake causes current decay, cryogenic coolant loss, and thermal stress. Thus, this paper investigates an improved double pancake winding, named the “jointless double pancake coil winding” and demonstrates the efficacy for minimizing the electrical loss of the high-temperature superconducting (HTS) coil, assembled in the modular double pancake types. It presents a winding method that avoids soldering between the pancake connections and thus removes the primary cause of the electrical loss generated in the existing design. This proposed winding method can effectively achieve zero electrical loss. This paper particularly presents the application of the proposed winding for the HTS-SMES and demonstrates the feasibility and improved functional benefits with reference to the conventional coil. This paper should maximize the operational benefits of using the SMES coil employing the proposed winding method in charge and discharge operations and should increase the effectiveness and efficiency in cryogenic systems.