| Abstract: | With the progress of superconducting wires for ac power use, research on superconducting power transformers is increasing. These transformers can be divided into two types: the iron-core type [1, 2]; and the air-core type [3–9]. The latter type has such advantages as absence of iron losses and magnetic saturation, and greater possibility of reduction of size and weight. However, the air-core transformer has a large magnetizing current due to the absence of iron core. Hence, research has been carried out on the possibility of using the air-core transformer also as a shunt reactor in a power transmission system. However, the operating characteristics of the air-core transformer, such as voltage regulation and reactance voltage, are not clear at present. In this paper, the equivalent circuit without losses is proposed first. Since this equivalent circuit is expressed by means of the magnetic coupling factor and self-inductances of windings, the effect of these parameters on the transformer characteristics can easily be investigated. Then, based on this equivalent circuit, the per-unit expressions for the air-core transformer characteristics are derived and the characteristics are analyzed in detail. The validity of the theoretical results are confirmed by experimental results obtained by the use of an experimental superconducting transformer. |
