Heat transfer in HTS transformer and current limiter windings

Design of cryogenic systems for HTS transformers and fault current limiters (FCL) must provide for fault conditions as well as normal operation. In the course of a fault the HTS windings may be heated rapidly to a temperature of 300 K or higher. The ability of the device to return to normal operation after a fault current depends critically on the efficiency of heat transfer from the hot windings to the cooling system. The engineering of the interface of the winding with the cryogen, generally liquid nitrogen in the case of HTS transformers and FCL, can properly be considered a crucial component of cooling system design. We report measurements of heat transfer from short metal and superconductor tape samples immersed in liquid nitrogen in conditions which approximate those in an HTS transformer winding. Samples were subjected to current pulses of several hundred A/mm2 for time intervals up to 2 seconds. The average sample temperature was estimated from the resistance. The current density during cool down was varied over the range corresponding to HTS transformer operation. Heat transfer was measured on samples with UV-cured polymer coatings as well as on bare samples. Somewhat paradoxically, by thermally insulating the metal surface from the liquid nitrogen the coating can drastically improve heat transfer. It does this by avoiding film boiling - the formation of a gas sheath on the surface - and extending the range of efficient cooling by nucleate boiling where the liquid is able to continuously wet the hot surface. We find that heat transfer during conductor cool down: - Is highest in subcooled operation e.g. at 65 K at atmospheric pressure compared to operation at the boiling point e.g. 77.3 K at atmospheric pressure - Is significantly increased by a thermally insulating coating of optimised thickness applied to the conductor compared to bare conductor, and reduced by wrapped-paper electrical insulatio

Heat transfer and recovery performance enhancement of metal and superconducting tapes under high current pulses for improving fault current limiting behavior of HTS transformers

High-temperature superconducting (HTS) transformer windings operate subcooled at atmospheric pressure to temperatures as low as 65 K, with minimal power dissipation from AC loss in normal operation. During short circuits, HTS transformers are subjected to transient heating by currents as large as 10 times the rated current for durations of up to 2 s. After isolating the fault, HTS transformers are required to cool back down to their base temperature while carrying the operating current. HTS transformer conductors are insulated, typically with wrapped self-adhesive polyimide tape, and windings consist of close-packed conductors wound on composite formers. In this paper, the heat transfer, transient thermal response, and recovery performance of brass-laminated coated conductor HTS wire as well as metallic conductors in liquid nitrogen (LN2) were measured at a range of temperatures from 77 K to 64 K and pressures from atmospheric to 0.14 bar in heating and cooling situations. Measurements were made on bare tapes, and on tapes wrapped with polyimide insulation tape and aramid paper as well as polymer-coated tapes with a range of coating thicknesses. Heat transfer from tapes mounted with one face in contact with a glass-epoxy composite cylindrical former was measured for comparison with free-standing tapes. Using conductors with solid polymer coatings of optimized thickness immersed in subcooled LN2 results in the highest heat transfer and fast recovery following heating to 300 K by a high current pulse. Compared to a bare tape in LN2 at ambient pressure at 77 K, the heat transfer in a coated tape in 65 K subcooled LN2 can be very significantly enhanced by up to a factor of 15, and recovery can be seven times faster

Thermomagnetic convective flows in a vertical layer of ferrocolloid: perturbation energy analysis and experimental study

Flow patterns arising in a vertical differentially heated layer of nonconducting ferromagnetic fluid placed in an external uniform transverse magnetic field are studied experimentally and discussed from the point of view of the perturbation energy balance. A quantitative criterion for detecting the parametric point where the dominant role in generating a flow instability is transferred between the thermogravitational and thermomagnetic mechanisms is suggested, based on the disturbance energy balance analysis. A comprehensive experimental study of various flow patterns is undertaken, and the existence is demonstrated of oblique thermomagnetic waves theoretically predicted by Suslov and superposed onto the stationary magnetoconvective pattern known previously. It is found that the wave number of the detected convection patterns depends sensitively on the temperature difference across the layer and on the applied magnetic field. In unsteady regimes its value varies periodically by a factor of almost 2, indicating the appearance of two different competing wave modes. The wave numbers and spatial orientation of the observed dominant flow patterns are found to be in good agreement with theoretical predictions

New type of thermal waves in a vertical layer of magneto-polarizable nano-suspension: theory and experiment

Study of Boussinesq convection in a vertical differentially heated fluid layer is one of classical problems in hydrodynamics. It is well known that as the value of fluid's Grashof number increases the basic flow velocity profile becomes unstable with respect to stationary shear-driven disturbances (at Prandtl numbers Pr<12.5) or thermogravitational waves propagating vertically (at larger values of Prandtl number). However linear stability studies of a similar flow of magnetopolarizable nanosuspensions (ferrofluids) placed in a uniform magnetic field perpendicular to a fluid layer predicted the existence of a new type of instability, oblique waves, that arise due to the differential local magnetisation of a non-uniformly heated fluid. The existence of such (thermomagnetic) waves has now been confirmed experimentally using a kerosene-based ferrofluid with magnetite particles of the average size of 10 nm stabilized with oleic acid. The heat transfer rate measurements using thermocouples and flow visualization using a thermosensitive film and an infrared camera have been performed. Perturbation energy analysis has been used to determine the physical nature of various observed instability patterns and quantitatively distinguish between thermogravitational and thermomagnetic waves

Interaction of gravitational and magnetic mechanisms of convection in a vertical layer of a magnetic fluid

AbstractMixed thermo-gravitational and thermo-magnetic convection in a vertical layer of non-conducting magnetic fluid is investigated. Various convection patterns found computationally are confirmed experimentally

Shielding Effect of (RE)Ba2Cu3O7-d-Coated Conductors on Eddy Current Loss of Adjacent Metal Layers under AC Magnetic Fields with Various Orientations

(RE)Ba2Cu3O7-d (REBCO) coated conductors are becoming a preferred wire choice for many potential high temperature superconducting (HTS) applications, where additional metal layers are usually attached to the REBCO conductors to improve reliability and stability. In such cases, the eddy current loss in the metal layers is affected by the magnetic field shielding by adjacent REBCO coated conductors. Here we present the ac loss measurement and simulation results in three copper-superconductor stacks comprising a 10-mm-wide Fujikura-coated conductor with one, two, and four 0.1-mm-thick, 10-mm-wide copper strips, under various applied magnetic field angles (defined by the angle between the applied magnetic field and the wide face of the superconductor) from 15° to 90° at 77 K. The amplitude of the magnetic field is up to 100 mT. The shielding effect, which reduces the eddy current loss in the metal layers stacked with a superconductor layer, increases with decreasing field angles, due to the change of the effective penetration field at the different field angles. The eddy current loss in the copper strips in the copper-superconductor stacks under the magnetic fields with various orientations is dominated by the perpendicular magnetic field component

Dynamic resistance and total loss in a three-tape REBCO stack carrying DC currents in perpendicular AC magnetic fields at 77 K

In many high-temperature superconducting (HTS) applications, HTS-coated conductors carry a DC current under an external AC magnetic field. In such operating conditions, dynamic resistance will occur when the traversing magnetic flux across the HTS conductors. Consequently, AC loss within the superconductors is composed of the dynamic loss component arising from dynamic resistance and the magnetization loss component due to the AC external magnetic field. This AC loss is one of the critical issues for HTS applications, such as persistent current switches, flux pumps, and rotating machines. In this work, the dynamic resistance and the total loss in a three-tape HTS coated conductor stack were measured at 77 K under perpendicular AC magnetic fields up to 80 mT and DC currents (I dc) up to the critical current (I c). The stack was assembled from three serial-connected 4 mm wide Superpower wires. The measured dynamic resistance results for the stack were well supported by the results from 2D H-formulation finite element modelling (FEM) and broadly agree with the analytical values for stacks. The FEM analysis shows asymmetric transport DC current profiles in the central region of the superconductor. We attribute the result to the superposition of DC currents and the induced subcritical currents which explains why the measured magnetization loss values increase with DC current levels at low magnetic field. The onset of dynamic loss for the stack for low i (I dc/I c) values is much slower when compared to that of the single tape and hence the contribution of the dynamic loss component to the total loss in the stack is much smaller than that of the single tape. Dynamic loss in the stack becomes comparable to the magnetization loss at i = 0.5 and becomes greater than the magnetization loss at i = 0.7. Both magnetization loss and dynamic loss in the stack are smaller than those of the single tape due to shielding effects. The difference between the Q total behaviours in the stack and single tape is due to the variation of the penetration depths of the stack and single tape at the different magnetic field amplitudes