Design and Test of a Prototype 20 kA HTS DC Power Transmission Cable

Author

Michael, Philip C. ; Bromberg, Leslie ; Dietz, Anthony J. ; Cragin, Kenneth J. ; Gold, Calman

Author_Institution

MIT Plasma Sci. & Fusion Center, Cambridge, MA, USA

Volume

25

Issue

3

fYear

2015

fDate

Jun-15

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

5

Abstract

We present an innovative design for a high temperature superconductor (HTS) dc power transmission system containing an HTS cable connected to optimized multistage current leads and cooled by a multistage turbo-Brayton cryocooler. Analytical results indicate that our proposed 5 MW transmission system can provide a 35% reduction in transmission losses and 93% reduction in system weight, compared with ambient-temperature copper bus. We describe a test stand to assess the performance of the proposed design and discus modifications to the facility to permit cable testing at up to 20 kA current. Efforts to demonstrate full current operation in the simulated system were hampered by higher than expected electrical resistance at the cable joints.

Keywords

Brayton cycle; cooling; high-temperature superconductors; power cable testing; superconducting cables; superconducting device testing; transmission networks; HTS DC power transmission cable system; ambient-temperature copper bus; cable joint; cable testing; current 20 kA; electrical resistance; high temperature superconductor; multistage current optimization; multistage turbo-Brayton cryocooler; power 5 MW; transmission loss reduction; Copper; Heating; High-temperature superconductors; Joints; Power cables; Superconducting cables; Current lead optimization; HTS cable; current lead optimization; dc power transmission; turbo-Brayton cryocooler;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Applied Superconductivity, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1051-8223

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TASC.2014.2373824

Filename

6963313