The Development and Performance Test of a 10 kV Resistive Type Superconducting Fault Current Limiter

This paper presents the design of a 10 kV, 200 A resistive type superconducting fault current limiter prototype. Several one-meter long YBCO coated conductors prepared by Shanghai Jiaotong University are used to build the current limiting module. Each module has 2 tapes connected in parallel to reach 400 A rated current ( of each tape is 150 A ~200 A) and 6 tapes connected in series to withstand 700~800 V voltage drop. A series of tests and measurements have been carried out to investigate the performance of the fault current limiting module. Short circuit test of the module has been performed on a specially designed transformer which is able to withstand large current on the secondary side. The power capacity of the lab allows performing the test up to 40 V and a few thousand Amperes. The whole process of a fault, including fault occurring, current limiting, circuit breaker opening and superconductors recovery, has been tested and the current and voltage of YBCO tapes are monitored. The current limiting module is tested with different shunt resistors to demonstrate its ability to vary its limited current.