Thermo-Hydraulic Analysis of a Tri-Axial High-Temperature Superconducting Power Cable with Respect to Installation Site Geography

Various high-temperature superconducting (HTS) power cables are being developed or are ready for commercial operation to help energy suppliers meet the growing power demand in urban areas. Recently, triaxial HTS power cables have been developed by Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) and LS Cable & System. Further, KEPCO has been planning to install a 2 km long 23 kV/60 MVA triaxial HTS power cable to connect the Munsan and Seonyu substations and increase the stability of the power grid. The HTS power cables should be cooled down to a cryogenic temperature near 77 K. A thermo-hydraulic analysis of the cooling system considering the geographical characteristics of the installation site is essential for long-distance sections. This paper describes the thermo-hydraulic analysis of the triaxial HTS power cable to determine the proper mass flow rates of subcooled liquid nitrogen that meet the operating temperature and pressure of the cable for four configurations of cooling systems: (1) a single cooling system with an external return path, (2) a dual cooling system with an external return path, (3) a single cooling system with an internal return path, and (4) a dual cooling system with internal return path. Since the flow characteristics in a corrugated cable cryostat differ significantly from those in a typical annular tube, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis was conducted to estimate the pressure drop along the cable cryostat. With the CFD analysis and given heat loads in the cable, the temperature and the pressure variations along the cable were calculated and their pros and cons were compared for each configuration of the cooling system. This thermo-hydraulic analysis will be referenced in the actual installation of the HTS power cable between the Munsan and Seonyu substations

Analysis of the Temperature Characteristics of Three-Phase Coaxial Superconducting Power Cable according to a Liquid Nitrogen Circulation Method for Real-Grid Application in Korea

Large-capacity superconducting power cables are in the spotlight to replace existing underground transmission power cables for energy power transmission. Among them, the three-phase coaxial superconducting power cable has the economic advantage of reducing the superconducting shielding layer by enabling magnetic shielding when the three phases are homogeneous without an independent superconducting shielding layer for magnetic shielding. In order to develop the three-phase coaxial superconducting power cable, the electrical and structural design should be carried out to construct the superconducting layer. However, the thermal design and analysis for the cooling of the three-phase coaxial superconducting power cable must be done first, so that the electrical design can be made using the temperature transferred to the superconducting layer. The three-phase coaxial superconducting cable requires a cooling system to circulate the cryogenic refrigerant for cooling below a certain temperature, and the structure of the cable through which the cryogenic refrigerant travels must also be analyzed. In this paper, the authors conducted a longitudinal temperature analysis according to the structure of the refrigerant circulation system of the cable and proposed a refrigerant circulation system suitable for this development. The temperature profile according to this analysis was then used as a function of temperature for the electrical (superconducting and insulating layers) design of the three-phase coaxial superconducting power cable. It is also expected to be used to analyze the cooling structure of the three-phase coaxial superconducting power cable installed in the real grid system

A Simplified Model of Coaxial, Multilayer High-Temperature Superconducting Power Cables with Cu Formers for Transient Studies

Bypassing transient current through copper (Cu) stabilizer layers reduces heat generation and temperature rise of high-temperature superconducting (HTS) conductors, which could protect HTS cables from burning out during transient conditions. The Cu layer connected in parallel with HTS tape layers impacts current distribution among layers and variations of phase resistance in either steady-state or transient conditions. Modeling the multilayer HTS power cable is important for transient studies. However, existing models of HTS power cables have only proposed HTS cables without the use of a Cu-former layer. To overcome this problem, the authors proposed a multilayer HTS power cable model that used a Cu-former layer in each phase for transient study. It was observed that resistance of the HTS conductor increased significantly in the transient state due to a quenching phenomenon, which made the transient current mainly flow into the Cu-former layers. Since resistance of the Cu-former layer has a significant impact on the transient current, detailed modeling of the Cu-former layer is described in this study. The feasibility of the developed HTS cable model is evaluated in the PSCAD/EMTDC program

Increased white matter hyperintensities in male methamphetamine abusers

BACKGROUND: The current study was conducted to compare the prevalence, severity, and location of white matter signal hyperintensities (WMH) on brain magnetic resonance (MR) imaging in methamphetamine (MA) abusers. METHODS: Thirty-three MA abusers and 32 age- and gender-matched healthy comparison subjects were studied. Axial T-2 weighted images and fluid attenuated inversion recovery axial images were obtained using 3.0 T MR scanner. The severity of WMH was assessed separately for deep and periventricular WMH. Ordinal logistic regression models were used to assess the odds ratio for WMH. RESULTS: MA abusers had greater severity of WMH than the healthy comparison subjects (odds ratio: 7.06, 8.46, and 4.56 for all, deep, and periventricular WMH, respectively). Severity of deep WMH correlated with total cumulative dose of MA (p = 0.027). Male MA abusers had greater severity of WMH than female MA abusers (odds ratio = 10.00). While male MA abusers had greater severity of WMH than male comparison subjects (odds ratio = 18.86), there was no significant difference in WMH severity between female MA abusers and female comparison subjects. CONCLUSIONS: The current study reports increased WMH in MA abusers, which may be related to MA-induced cerebral perfusion deficits. In addition, female MA abusers had less severe WMH than male MA abusers, possibly due to estrogen's protective effect against ischemic or neurotoxic effects of MA

Magnetoresistance in copper at high frequency and high magnetic fields

In halo dark matter axion search experiments, cylindrical microwave cavities are typically employed to detect signals from the axion-photon conversion. To enhance the conversion power and reduce the noise level, cavities are placed in strong solenoid magnetic fields at sufficiently low temperatures. Exploring high mass regions in cavity-based axion search experiments requires high frequency microwave cavities and thus understanding cavity properties at high frequencies in extreme conditions is deemed necessary. We present a study of the magnetoresistance of copper using a cavity with a resonant frequency of 12.9 GHz at the liquid helium temperature in magnetic fields up to 15 T utilizing a second generation high temperature superconducting magnet. The observations are interpreted to be consistent with the anomalous skin effect and size effect. This is the first measurement of magnetoresistance at a high frequency (>10 GHz) in high magnetic fields (>10 T). © 2017 IOP Publishing Ltd and Sissa Medialab2