When the critical current density J c for a superconductor is constant, the critical current I c increases in proportion to the superconducting cross-sectional area. However, in the case of a superconducting coated conductor, when the thickness of the superconducting layer exceeds about 2 μm, there is no further increase in I c. This is because J c decreases due to the structural degradation of the superconducting layer. In this study, J c for samples with superconducting layers of different thicknesses was measured using the longitudinal magnetic field effect in order to investigate the optimum layer thickness for maximizing I c. Differences in the J c characteristics due to the layer thickness appeared more clearly under a longitudinal magnetic field than a transverse magnetic field. This was particularly true at low temperatures, and the optimum layer thickness was found to be approximately 1 μm.

To analyze the inrush current in a superconducting transformer, the machine parameters for the transformer were estimated from the measured current using a search algorithm. To address the large rising edge error in estimations performed using a genetic algorithm (GA), a differential evolution (DE) was used in this study. As a result, the estimated time was reduced to about 1/10 that obtained with GA, and the evaluation value indicating the difference between the measured value and the estimated value was reduced to about 1/2. Thus, it was possible to estimate with higher accuracy by using DE.

In this study, we designed a power cable based on the longitudinal magnetic field (LMF) effect using an iterative approximation method. An evaluation of the cable shows that it is more efficient than conventional-design power cables. A cable with four inner layers and four shield layers and a maximum winding angle of 30° had a current capacity of more than 10 kA. Based on calculation results, we fabricated a 2-m-long LMF power cable and a conventional-design power cable. Experimental results show that the proposed power cable can carry more current (8.8% more current per tape and 18% more current overall) than a conventional-design power cable due to the LMF effect. These results well agree with the theoretical calculation results.