Inductance and current distribution analysis of a prototype HTS cable

Abstract

This project is partly supported by NSFC Grant 51207146, RAEng Research Exchange scheme of UK and EPSRC EP/K01496X/1. Superconducting cable is an emerging technology for electricity power transmission. Since the high power capacity HTS transmission cables are manufactured using a multi-layer conductor structure, the current distribution among the multilayer structure would be nonuniform without proper optimization and hence lead to large transmission losses. Therefore a novel optimization method has been developed to achieve evenly distributed current among different layers considering the HTS cable structure parameters: radius, pitch angle and winding direction which determine the self and mutual inductance. A prototype HTS cable has been built using BSCCO tape and tested to validate the design the optimal design method. A superconductor characterization system has been developed using the Labview and NI data acquisition system. It can be used to measure the AC loss and current distribution of short HTS cables.