Curved beam elements to model noncircular coil shapes for tokamak reactor

The detailed stress analysis of the toroidal field superconducting coil is needed to ensure its structural integrity, which includes conductor breakage, insulation breakage, sliding between two turns, or support structure failure. Such detailed-analysis requires that each of the superconducting coil turns be modelled separately. In this paper, a curved beam finite element,¹³ having constant radius of curvature, is considered to model a turn of a noncircular toroidal field coil. Four different coil shapes subjected to electromagnetic body forces due to toroidal magnetic fields are analysed to assess the finite element models: circular, elliptic, Princeton-D⁸ and compound shape⁹. The comparison of analytical and finite element analysis results for resultant forces, tensions and displacements suggest that the proposed approach may be extended to the detailed stress analysis of the noncircular toroidal field superconducting coil.     

3D Modeling Permanent Magnet Guideway for High Temperature Superconducting Maglev Vehicle Application

A three-dimensional analytical method is proposed to model the permanent magnet guideway (PMG) involved in the high-temperature superconducting (HTS) maglev vehicle system, and with this analytical method, the non-uniformity of magnetic field along the longitudinal direction of the PMG due to the existent gap between the adjacent permanent magnet (PM) can be taken into account in the simulation of the HTS maglev vehicle system. The analytical expressions for two rectangular PM with different magnetization directions are deduced from the Biot–Savart’s law. The 3D modeling of the PMG is validated from the four aspects, i.e., the comparison of the measurement and calculation value of the magnetic field; the magnetic field contour of the PMG; the comparison of the 3D method results with the 2D method; and the comparison of the results from the present 3D analytical model and previous finite element software. Currently, using the 3D analytical model, we have proposed a 3D method to numerically investigate the HTS magnetic levitation/suspension system with bulk high-temperature superconductor (HTSC).     

Demagnetization of a Bi-2223 high-temperature superconducting coil in RT-1 through spontaneous temperature rise

The Ring Trap 1 (RT-1) device produces a magnetospheric configuration for the confinement of a high-β plasma with a Bi-2223 high-temperature superconducting magnet. Here we report the results of emergency demagnetization of the superconducting coil, where we could not connect current leads, temperature measurement connectors, and connectors for a persistent-current switch (PCS) heater to the coil. The spontaneous warming of the coil caused a rise in the flux-flow resistance of the superconducting coil, and the persistent current slowly decreased as coil resistance increased. Approximately 98% of the total stored magnetic energy was safely released before the quenching of the PCS, and there was no substantial damage to the superconducting coil.     

Development of 3kA conduction cooled HTS current lead system

The research and development of superconducting magnet energy storage (SMES) system, a national project, began in 1999. One of the purposes of this project is investigation concerning the application of high-temperature superconducting (HTS) SMES. As a part of this project, the 3 kA class HTS small model coil was manufactured in order to verify the possibility of realizing conduction cooled HTS SMES. Therefore, it is important to develop the conduction cooled current lead system for applying this coil. We developed a kA class conduction cooled HTS current lead system. This current lead system consists of the copper current lead and the YBaCuO (YBCO) HTS current lead. The YBCO bulk manufactured by Nippon Steel Corporation was applied to the HTS current lead. The YBCO bulk keeps high critical current density (J_c > 10,000 A/cm²) in the magnetic field (1 T) at 77 K compared with Bi2223 superconductor. The experiment of this HTS current lead system was carried out, and rated current of 3000 A was achieved successfully.     

Electrical Design of a 17 MW Class HTS Motor for Ship Propulsion

A superconducting motor shows several advantages, such as smaller size and higher efficiency, over a conventional motor, especially utilized in ship propulsion applications. However, the size reduction merit appears for large capacity, more than several MW. We develop a large capacity synchronous motor with a rotating high-temperature superconducting (HTS) coil, that is aimed to be utilized for ship propulsion, so it has a low rotating speed of about 200 rpm. The ship propulsion motor must generate high electromagnetic torque instead of low speed. Therefore, the rotor (field) coils have to generate a large magnetic flux that results in a large amount of expensive HTS conductor for the field coil. In this paper a 17 MW HTS motor for ship propulsion is designed with a cost-effective method because the HTS conductor cost is a critical factor in the construction of an HTS motor. Unlike conventional rotating machines, the superconducting motor consists of an iron-coreless structure. Most conventional motors can be designed with small error based on two-dimensional magnetic field analysis. However, the superconducting motor shows an even larger error between the two- and three-dimensional based designs. Thus, in order to improve the design accuracy, we have calculated the back electromotive force (EMF) using 3D magnetic field analysis. An output performance evaluation has also been carried out to obtain a design with higher efficiency.     

Performance improvement and optimization of a high-temperature superconducting coil having different transport current portions by employing persistent current mode

To improve the performance of a high-temperature superconducting (HTS) coil, it is important to improve its transport current performance. In general, the critical current and n-value of an HTS (Bi-2223/Ag) tape depend on the applied magnetic fields and the angle between the magnetic field and the tape under a constant temperature. The critical currents in the coil edge of the tapes are particularly low because of the distribution of the magnetic fields. However, the critical currents in the central portion remain high. A large amount of current can be supplied to the central portion and the coil performance will improve by supplying different currents between these areas. In this study, I propose an HTS coil in which the coil edge and central portion are isolated for each excitation. Namely, I employ the characteristics of the persistent current mode. The analysis of varying regions of current separation confirmed an optimum current separation. This optimized coil improves the central magnetic field by 21% and the stored energy by 50% compared to those of a normal rectangular coil with an HTS tape of the same length.     

Thickness-Dependent Current Density and Flux Distribution in Thin Current-Carrying Superconducting Films Exposed to a Magnetic Field

With the rapid development of high-temperature superconductors, it is of great significance to get the precise current density and flux distribution within thin high-temperature superconducting films subjected to a transport current and an applied magnetic field. The transport current distribution and flux density in thin high-temperature superconducting films are calculated by a numerical method based on the Kim model and exponential model in this paper. The influences of transport current, applied magnetic field, width, and thickness of a superconducting film on the current distribution are discussed. The results reveal that the thickness has a significant effect on the critical current density of superconducting films.     

Critical current in YBa2Cu3O7 ceramics

Measurements of critical currents using a four-point direct current (dc) method and an alternating magnetic field method have been performed on several superconducting YBa₂Cu₃O₇ ceramics at 77 K. In the presence of a constant magnetic field, the critical currents obtained with the alternating field method are several orders of magnitude larger than the critical currents measured by the dc method. Also, we observed a minimum in the dc critical current as a function of applied transverse magnetic field. Several authors have suggested that these ceramics behave as individual superconducting grains coupled by Josephson junctions. In this paper, we explain the two observations above using that model.     

Thermal-Electromagnetic Analysis for 14 kA Fast Discharge of a Model Coil

A model coil for 40-T hybrid magnet superconducting outsert magnet has been constructed and tested at the High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The model coil was wound with Nb₃Sn cable-in-conduit conductor (CICC) cabled in a 316LN jacket cooled with supercritical helium. The model coil alone can produce about 4 T maximum magnetic field with an operating current of 14 kA. The model coil, in combination with 7.57-T NbTi background coil, can produce 11.5 T central field at 14 kA. During the test campaigns, a fast discharge was triggered by a dump resistor of 3.6 mΩ to evaluate the thermal-electromagnetic behavior of the model coil. In order to avoid a quench of the background coil, no current was exerted on the background coil through a power supply during the fast discharge of the model coil. The test results show that the central magnetic field is not scaled proportionally to the current decay of the model coil. The circuit model gives excellent results compared with the measured ones for the central magnetic field evolution as a function of time in this paper. For the thermal-hydraulic behavior during the fast discharge, the maximum temperature at the inlet simulated by the 1-D Gandalf code gives excellent agreement results compared with the measured ones with the conductor coupling time constant of 63 ms.     

Electrical parameter evaluation of a 1 MW HTS motor via analysis and experiments

A 1 MW class HTS (high-temperature superconducting) synchronous motor has been developed. Design concerns of the developed motor are focused on smaller machine size and higher efficiency than conventional motors or generators with the same rating simultaneously reducing expensive Bi-2223 HTS wire which is used for superconducting field coil carrying the operating current around 30 K (−243 °C). Influence of an important parameter, synchronous reactance, has been analyzed on the machine performances such as voltage variation and output power during motor and generator operation. The developed motor was also analyzed by three-dimensional electromagnetic FEM (finite element method) to get magnetic field distribution, inductance, electromagnetic stress and so forth.This motor is aimed to be utilized for industrial application such as large motors operating in large plants. The HTS field coil of the developed motor is cooled by way of Neon thermosiphon mechanism and the stator (armature) coil is cooled by water through hollow copper conductor. This paper also describes evaluation of some electrical parameters from performance test results which were obtained at steady state in generator and motor mode of our HTS machine.     

用于心磁传感器测试系统的三轴向亥姆赫兹线圈的设计与仿真

心磁检测对于心脏相关疾病的诊断具有独特优势，在用于测量心脏磁场的传感器(下称心磁传感器）的研制过程中，需要在模拟心磁的磁场环境下进行测试工作。基于此，设计了一个用于心磁传感器测试系统的亥姆赫兹线圈，它可以产生磁感应强度为pT级的动态磁场，模拟心磁环境，以满足心磁传感器测试的需求。根据亥姆赫兹线圈的磁场产生原理，使用磁屏蔽筒对环境磁场进行屏蔽，通过计算确定了线圈尺寸、线圈匝数、导线长度及导线横截面直径等参数。使用COMSOL Multiphysics仿真软件对亥姆赫兹线圈产生的静态磁场的分布均匀性以及通入线圈电流变化时磁场的动态特性进行仿真分析。仿真结果表明，所设计的亥姆赫兹线圈满足设计要求，能够产生磁场强度为100 pT左右、均匀度小于5%、波形实时性好的类心脏磁场波形，为心磁传感器的测试提供了良好的测试环境。所设计的亥姆赫兹线圈能够用于心磁传感器的测试工作，为心磁传感器的实际应用奠定了基础。     

Low resistance splices for HTS devices and applications

This paper discusses the preparation methodology and performance evaluation of low resistance splices made of the second generation (2G) high-temperature superconductor (HTS). These splices are required in a broad spectrum of HTS devices including a large aperture, high-field solenoid built in the laboratory to demonstrate a superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) device. Several pancake coils are assembled in the form of a nested solenoid, and each coil requires a hundred meters or more of 2G (RE)BCO tape. However, commercial availability of this superconductor with a very uniform physical properties is currently limited to shorter piece lengths. This necessitates us having splices to inter-connect the tape pieces within a pancake coil, between adjacent pancake coils, and to attach HTS current leads to the magnet assembly. As a part of the optimization and qualification of splicing process, a systematic study was undertaken to analyze the electrical performance of splices in two different configurations suitable for this magnet assembly: lap joint and spiral joint. The electrical performance is quantified in terms of the resistance of splices estimated from the current-voltage characteristics. It has been demonstrated that a careful application of this splicing technique can generate lap joints with resistance less than 1 nΩ at 77 K.     

Development of a superconducting fault current limiter using various high-speed circuit breakers

The authors constructed and tested a model superconducting fault current limiter (SFCL) using a high-temperature superconducting film according to a design that includes a vacuum interrupter with an electromagnetic repulsion mechanism. The superconductor and the vacuum interrupter are connected in parallel with a bypass coil. If a fault occurs and current flows through the system, the superconductor is quenched and the current is transferred to the parallel coil because of the voltage drop in the superconductor. This large current in the parallel coil actuates the magnetic repulsion mechanism of the vacuum interrupter. On opening the vacuum interrupter, the current in the superconductor is interrupted. This model is expected to exhibit very low-energy consumption by the superconductor. The authors succeeded in interrupting the current flowing in the superconductor within a half-cycle using a prototype SFCL. An improved SFCL with higher voltage and current ranges was used to carry out current-limiting tests and to investigate the possibility of adapting our SFCL in a power system. The authors also carried out a currentlimiting test using a conventional high-speed vacuum circuit breaker (HSVCB) as a new method for realising our concept.     

Study of flow fractionation characteristics of magnetic chromatography utilizing high-temperature superconducting bulk magnet

Abstract

We present numerical simulation of separating magnetic particles with different magnetic susceptibilities by magnetic chromatography using a high-temperature superconducting bulk magnet. The transient transport is numerically simulated for two kinds of particles having different magnetic susceptibilities. The time evolutions were calculated for the particle concentration in the narrow channel of the spiral arrangement placed in the magnetic field. The field is produced by the highly magnetized high-temperature superconducting bulk magnet. The numerical results show the flow velocity difference of the particle transport corresponding to the difference in the magnetic susceptibility, as well as the possible separation of paramagnetic particles of 20 nm diameter.     

Designing highly homogenous superconducting magnets by computer

A method was developed to calculate the magnetic field of superconducting magnets with a computer, type ODRA 1304. This programme calculates the magnetic field of every individual layer of the coil at any point in space, and sums them. By this process it is possible to build magnets with better homogeneity, than 10^?6cm^?1. It guarantees two kinds of methods for realizing high homogeneity by overwinding the ends of the solenoid: both discreet coils of corrections and corrections of different continuous shape. The numerical results for the three experimentally examined magnets (cylindrical solenoid, Helmholtz's coil and corrected solenoid) are in close agreement with the theory.     

Proposal of rectifier type superconducting fault current limiter with non-inductive reactor (SFCL)

A rectifier type superconducting fault current limiter (SFCL) with non-inductive reactor has been proposed. The concept behind this SFCL is the appearance of high impedance during non-superconducting state of the coil. In a hybrid bridge circuit, two superconducting coils connected in anti-parallel: a trigger coil and a limiting coil. Both the coils are magnetically coupled with each other and have same number of turns. There is almost zero flux inside the core and therefore the total inductance is small during normal operation. At fault time when the trigger coil current reaches to a certain level, the trigger coil changes from superconducting state to normal state. This super-to-normal transition of the trigger coil changes the current ratio of the coils and therefore the flux inside the reactor is no longer zero. So, the equivalent impedance of both the coils increased thus limits the fault current. We have carried out computer simulation using EMTDC and observed the results. A preliminary experiment has already been performed using copper wired reactor with simulated super-to-normal transition resistance and magnetic switches. Both the simulation and preliminary experiment shows good results. The advantage of using hybrid bridge circuit is that the SFCL can also be used as circuit breaker. Two separate bridge circuit can be used for both trigger coil and the limiter coil. In such a case, the trigger coil can be shutdown immediately after the fault to reduce heat and thus reduce the recovery time. Again, at the end of fault when the SFCL needs to re-enter to the grid, turning off the trigger circuit in the two-bridge configuration the inrush current can be reduced. This is because the current only flows through the limiting coil. Another advantage of this type of SFCL is that no voltage sag will appear during load increasing time as long as the load current stays below the trigger current level.     

Magnetoresistance,Irreversibility Fields,and Critical Currents of Superconducting 2G Tape

The magnetoresistance, irreversibility fields, and critical current density were studied for a commercial 2G tape at the two relative orientations of magnetic field and superconductor plane. The critical temperatures of this tape of T _{c50 %} = 91.5 K and T _c0 = 90 K and the width of superconducting transition of ΔT = 1.5 K were obtained. The widths of the transition from the normal to the superconducting state do not increase at the applied magnetic field up to 90 kOe and do not depend on the orientation of the magnetic field with respect to the tape plane. The irreversibility field values were obtained and successfully fitted as a function of temperature using the formula: \(H_{\text {irr}} =H_{\text {irr0}} \left ({1-\frac {T}{T_{\text {c0}} }} \right )^{n}\). The irreversibility fields show an anisotropy, and at the liquid nitrogen temperature, they reach H _irr = 430 kOe and H _irr = 106 kOe for the parallel and perpendicular directions, respectively. The anisotropy ratio amounts to γ = 4 at 77 K and is small in comparison with other high-temperature superconducting materials. The critical current density of this tape was found to be of the order of 10⁶ A cm^?2 at 77 K in the self-magnetic field.     

Test operations of the VENUS superconducting magnet at KEK

The superconducting magnet of the VENUS detector was successfully operated with a central field of 0.75 T. A cryogenic system kept the coil temperature to below 4.5 K. When a coil quench was induced by built-in heaters, the stored energy of 11.7 MJ was safely extracted from the magnet to the outside dump resistor. The iron structure of the magnet yoke supported the magnetic force of about 230 t with a maximum elastic deformation of 0.4 mm. The maximum leakage field at the location of the barrel electromagnetic calorimeter was 33 G. The magnetic field was mapped in the solenoid bore by an NMR probe and by three-dimensional Hall probes with an accuracy of order 10⁻⁴. The field was confirmed to be uniform within 0.3% deviation in the spatial region of a central drift chamber.     

Conceptual Design of a Field Coil for 5 MW HTS Synchronous Machine

Compared with a conventional rotating machine, a superconducting rotating machine fabricated by High Temperature Superconducting (HTS) tape has superior performance and efficiency due to the HTS field coil for the rotor which can generate high magnetic flux intensity. The two primary factors for the design of the HTS rotational machine are how to construct the optimal magnetic field path through the air gap located between the rotor and the stator and how to enhance the linkage magnetic flux density between the armature coil in the stator and the field coil in the rotor. A 5 MW HTS motor for ship propulsion is planned for development in early 2011 by a Korean collaboration group of KERI and DOOSAN Heavy Industry. As a part of this R&D efforts, we designed and analyzed the field coil for a 5 MW HTS synchronous motor. In this paper, the computational results of the magnetic field distribution on the whole winding regions of the HTS field coil of the superconducting rotating machine will be also presented and discussed.     

Magnetic Field-Based Eddy-Current Modeling for Multilayered Specimens

Eddy-current inspection for nondestructive evaluation has traditionally been investigated in terms of coil impedance signals via theoretical and experimental methods. However, advanced eddy-current techniques use solid-state sensors such as Hall devices, giant magnetoresistive sensors, anisotropic magnetoresistive sensors, and superconducting quantum interference devices for magnetic field measurement to achieve better sensitivity and high temporal and spatial resolution in material evaluation and characterization. Here, we review the Dodd and Deeds integral model and use the truncated region eigenfunction expansion (TREE) method for computation of the magnetic field. This results in series expressions instead of integral ones. Thus, the computation is both simplified and speeded up so that it becomes convenient for solving one-dimensional eddy-current inverse problems. We compare the theoretical results from the analytical model with the results from a numerical simulation based on the finite-element method in terms of accuracy and computation time.