Recovery performance of partially-joined porous-stabilized REBCO tape for resistive type superconducting fault current limiters

Abstract

In the case of using rare-earth barium copper oxide (REBCO) tape as a current-limiting element, there are three requirements: high normal state resistance, high thermal stability, and quick recovery to the superconducting state. In this study, a new type of REBCO tape with a metal porous medium as a stabilizer (a porous-stabilized REBCO tape) was proposed, which has high resistance compared to bulk material and prevents film boiling due to its strong capillary force. First, a numerical simulation was performed to evaluate the current-limiting performance of the porous-stabilized REBCO tape with a Ni-Cr porous medium. The results showed that the current-limiting performance was dramatically improved by placing indium partially on the REBCO tape to join the porous medium compared to placing indium wholly. Then, the porous-stabilized REBCO tapes with various arrays of indium were manufactured, and tested to confirm its recovery characteristics. The experimental results indicated that the partially-joined Ni-Cr porous-stabilized REBCO tape reduced the recovery time by 69% compared to that of the stabilizer-free REBCO tape.

Composite Heat Sink Material for Superconducting Tape in Fault Current Limiter Applications

“…Conventional materials used to increase the heat capacity of the tape are brass, stainless steel or Hastelloy in compact [13][14][15] or porous form [16]. Drawback of these materials is their electrical conductivity, which reduces electrical resistivity of the tape and causes that more heat is generated at the same level of electric field [17].…”

Improving the recovery performance of superconducting fault current limiters using nitrogen/tetrafluoromethane mixed coolants

“…For the superconducting coil, ignoring the temperature gradient inside the tape and merely considering heat exchange with the cryogen, the corresponding transient heat equation can be expressed as [18,28]:…”

“…Previous studies have established several practical approaches to reduce the recovery time of SFCL, including increasing the stabilizer thickness [15], arranging an extra flowing branch [16,17], and adopting partially joined porousstabilized REBCO tape [18,19]; all attempts have achieved good results.…”