Abstract. Coated conductors are very promising for the design of novel and efficient Fault Current Limiter (FCL). However, before considering using them in a power grid, their thermal and electromagnetic behaviors in the presence of over-critical currents need to be investigated in details. In this context, we performed finite element magneto-thermal modeling of coated conductors under over-critical current on several geometries. Accordingly, we have investigated the substrate electrical connectivity and thermal properties on the HTS-FCL behavior. All simulations were performed using in COMSOL Multiphysics , a commercial finite element package, which has a built-in coupling between the thermal and electrical equations, allowing us to compute both quantities simultaneously during the solving process. Our simulations allowed us to formulate thresholds for the current density usable in coated HTS as well as limitation capability of a device made of these new conductors.
IntroductionRecent advances in thin film technology and epitaxial growth allowed the emergence of coated conductors (CC) as a second generation of high-temperature superconductors (HTS), which, by their expected low price and high critical current density, seems to be the favored candidate for resistive Fault Current Limiters (FCLs) [1][2][3]. In the recent past, several authors have proposed numerical magneto-thermal models to describe the behavior of CC-FCL [4][5][6]. Such simulations are of great interest to design efficient limiters since they allow a better understanding of these devices, which are hard to design in a way that thermal stability is ensured over all conditions of operation. Nonetheless, numerical models proposed in the literature are usually not suitable for quick and simple calculations. Indeed, implementing home developed code or using typical finite element method (FEM) software is often time consuming and requires considerable resources. In this paper, we present a magneto-thermal model that is very easy to implement.