Design of a superconducting machine and its cooling system for an aeronautics application

Abstract

The transition to electric propulsion aircraft requires electrical motors or generators with high power density. The "zero resistivity"of the superconducting materials could be used in electrical machines to produce high magnetic fields and reduce the use of heavy components such as the ferromagnetic parts. The discovery and recent developments in High Temperature Superconductors (HTS) technology make the superconducting machine a serious candidate in the future of aircraft. The design of a superconducting machine is strongly dependent on its electromagnetic and thermal behavior. In this paper, the design of a 50 kW superconducting aircraft generator is presented. The mass of the cryogenic cooling system is included into the design in order to optimize the entire superconducting system. The study shows that the choice of the cooling temperature to reduce the mass of the superconducting machine and its cooling system will depends on the input power of the machine.