Protection of superconducting wires and cables used in high power/high field applications

保护高功率/高场应用中使用的超导线材和电缆

• 批准号: RGPIN-2016-06687
• 负责人: Sirois, Frédéric
• 金额: $ 3.28万
• 依托单位: École Polytechnique de Montréal
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2020-01-01 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=710358
• 关键词: Protection; superconducting; wires; cables; used

Superconducting materials have the unique property of carrying lossless DC currents below a given critical current (Ic) and critical temperature (Tc). Superconductors considered in this proposal are called “High Temperature Superconductors” (HTS), because they exhibit superconductivity above liquid nitrogen temperature, i.e. 77 K (-196oC), a cheap coolant that is affordable in large-scale applications such as power devices. HTS wires come in the form of flat tapes and can carry amazingly high current densities, e.g. >2 MA/cm2 at 77 K. They are perfect for applications such as high field electromagnets, which allow reaching unprecedented field values, e.g. up to 50 T at 4 K. This could be a game changer in high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), nuclear fusion, particle accelerators, etc. Also, since magnets typically require hundreds of kilometers of HTS tapes, they are expected to be the big market “driver” sought for scaling-up the production and reduce costs of HTS wires in a near future. The biggest challenge with superconducting devices is to protect them reliably against thermal instabilities that can destroy them rapidly. In this proposal, we propose to expand the application range of a concept discovered within my research group and that is called “current flow diverter” (CFD). This concept allows speed-up by an order of magnitude the propagation of a thermal instability when it occurs, which considerably simplifies the protection of HTS devices, in particular HTS magnets. It is seen as a potential breakthrough in the discipline, and therefore deserves serious consideration in the short term. The technology was awarded a U.S. patent in May 2015, and further I.P. could arise form short-term research, with potentially wide market if it penetrates the MRI market. Within this project, the following main objectives will be pursued: 1) Find an effective and economical approach to implement the current flow diverter (CFD) concept on long lengths of commercial HTS tapes 2) Understand the impact of a hot spot nucleation in high-current cables made of many HTS tapes (e.g. Roebel or TASC cables) under various experimental conditions 3) Evaluate the impact of using the CFD concept combined with state-of-the-art protection systems for HTS magnets These objectives are aligned with the ultimate goal of my research program, which is to “allow the emergence of a new generation of compact and efficient superconducting devices for improving security of supply in power systems and enable the emergence of high field HTS magnets”. Along the project, it is planned to train 3 Ph.D. students, 5 Master's student, and 5 summer interns. Some parts of the project will be carried out with international partners in order to take advantage of existing infrastructures and speed-up the generation of research results.

超导材料具有在给定临界电流（IC）和临界温度（TC）以下的无损直流电流的独特特性。该提案中考虑的超导体称为“高温超导体”（HTS），因为它们在液氮温度以上暴露了超导性，即77 K（-196OC），一种便宜的冷却剂，一种在大型应用中（如电源设备）中负担得起的。 HTS电线的形式是扁平磁带的形式，可以携带高电流密度，例如在77 K处> 2 mA/cm2。它们非常适合诸如高场电子磁铁等应用，这些应用允许达到前所未有的场值，例如在4 K处最多可达50吨。这可能是高分辨率磁共振成像（MRI），核融合，粒子加速器等的游戏规则改变者。而且，由于磁铁通常需要数百公里的HTS磁带，因此预计它们将是较大的市场“驾驶员”，以缩放和降低接近未来的HTS电缆的生产成本。超导设备最大的挑战是可靠地保护它们免受可以迅速破坏它们的热不稳定性。在此提案中，我们建议扩大我研究小组中发现的概念的应用范围，这称为“当前流动分流器”（CFD）。该概念可以通过数量级加速热不稳定性的传播，这大大简化了HTS设备的保护，尤其是HTS磁铁。它被认为是该学科的潜在突破，因此在短期内值得认真考虑。该技术于2015年5月获得美国专利，并进一步授予I.P.可能会形成短期研究，如果它渗透到MRI市场，则可能具有广泛的市场。 在该项目中，将实现以下主要目标： 1）找到一种有效且经济的方法来实施当前流量分流器（CFD）概念 2）了解在各种实验条件下，在许多HTS磁带（例如Roebel或TASC电缆）制成的高电流电缆中热点成核的影响 3）评估使用CFD概念与HTS磁铁最新保护系统结合的影响 这些目标与我的研究计划的最终目标保持一致，即“允许出现新一代紧凑，有效的超导设备，以提高电力系统中的供应安全性，并使高场HTS磁铁的出现出现”。 沿该项目，计划培训3博士学位。学生，5名硕士学生和5个夏季国际学生。该项目的某些部分将与国际合作伙伴一起进行，以利用现有的基础设施并加快生成研究结果。