Mechanical Force Analysis in Heavy-Current HTS Transformers Based on Field and Current Nonuniformity Coupled Analysis

Mechanical stresses of magnetically induced origins are becoming more serious with the trend of high-temperature superconductor (HTS) heavy-current transformer (HCT) applications. Mechanical forces in HTS HCTs that act on the transformer windings are generated by the interaction between the current density and the leakage flux density. This paper presents the calculation of leakage flux and mechanical force distribution in high-current HTS transformer windings. This requires the need for advanced numerical techniques for simulation studies using finite-element method by adapting two auxiliary windings for the leakage flux mitigation and, thereby, mechanical forces within the main windings. A model is developed for the calculation of mechanical force considering nonuniformity of both field and current distributions in the windings, which is the main motivation for initiating this paper.