Fabrication of superconducting traction transformer for railway rolling stock

Abstract

We designed a floor type single-phase 4 MVA superconducting traction transformer for Shinkansen rolling stock. In this study, we fabricated a prototype superconducting traction transformer based on this design. This transformer of the core-type design has a primary winding, four secondary windings and a tertiary winding. The windings are wound by Bi2223 superconducting tapes and cooled by subcooled liquid nitrogen. The core is kept at room temperature. The cryostat is made of GFRP with two holes to pass core legs through. The outer dimensions are about 1.2m × 0.7m × 1.9m excluding the compressor. Its weight is 1.71t excluding that of refrigerator and compressor. The transformer was tested according to Japanese Industrial Standards (JIS)-E5007. We confirmed that the performance of transformer has been achieved almost exactly as planned. The rated capacity is equivalent to 3.5MVA in the superconducting state. © 2006 IOP Publishing Ltd.