A Novel Multi-Terminal Based Evaluation Method for an HTS DC Power Cable

High current capacity is one of the advantages of a superconducting power cable system. However, it creates difficulties when experimenting to analyze its characteristics. Short-length superconducting cables for a laboratory-scale experiment system present problems: large operating current and current distribution by terminal resistance. Experimental conditions, such as transient states, are limited by power supply capacity. In this paper, the authors suggest a new experimental method for the high-temperature superconducting (HTS) power cable to reduce the capacity of a power supply and solve current distribution problems. For the suggested method of this paper, each HTS wire has separated terminal and each HTS wire was connected in series through the separated terminal. All of HTS wires in the HTS power cable are insulated and connected in series. The cross-sectional area of the HTS power cable is the same, but the terminal structure is different. Thus, all HTS wires have the same current and cross-sectional area of HTS power cable. It is possible to test a large capacity HTS power cable under the transient state or fault conditions using a small-size power source. The design concept, configuration of the experiment system, and the experimental results were discussed in detail in this paper.