Superconducting Power Device Testbed with Cryogenic Helium Cooled Compact Terminations
Abstract
The DURIP proposal is to acquire a cryogenic helium gas circulation system and compact termination hardware to establish a versatile, testbed for High temperature Superconducting (HTS) power devices that are completely cooled with GHe. The testbed will enhance seve,ral current projects at the Center for Advanced Power Systems (CAPS) funded by the Office of Naval Research and several other curren,t collaborative research and development efforts of CAPS with DoD contractors and Small Businesses engaged in the development of HTS, technology components. The proposed facility enhancements will support many future DoD-funded efforts, current and future education, and training efforts of CAPS and the broader HTS community. HTS technology offers solutions to the US Navy demands of energy effici,ency, power density, safety, reliability, and resiliency of electric power systems. US Navy has been investing in HTS power devices,such as degaussing systems, generators, motors, power cables, Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage (SMES). The successful demonst,ration of the HTS Degaussing (HTS-DG) System and its transition to the fleet highlighted the capabilities of the HTS technology in l,owering weight and size as well as the installation complexities of the power devices with high ampacities. The Navy and Navy cont,ractors have been developing components of HTS power system technology to address the demands of large power capacity of the Integra,ted Power and Energy (IPES) systems of future navy platforms. CAPS has been the leader in HTS power devices and the associated cryog,enic cooling technologies. The HTS cable testbed and other infrastructure established at CAPS about 15 years ago has served the Navy, HTS community well through collaborative research and development efforts of basic research projects and supported many small busin,esses through several SBIR/STTR projects. The testbed and the infrastructure, despite being partially outdated, still have many usef,ul components and they are currently being used for many research and development projects. The current focus of the Navy is on HTS,power cables and other devices with high power density. To achieve the system-level high power density and suitable for Navy platfor,ms, the terminations need to be significantly smaller and have to be cooled with cryogenic helium gas similar to the power HTS devic,es. Previous HTS cable demonstrations used liquid nitrogen (LN2) to intercept the heat from the room temperature connects to prevent, the large heat loads on the gaseous cryogenic helium circulation (GHe) loop that cools the HTS cable. The use LN2 was essential in,the demonstrations because the cooling power necessary to cool the terminations was never available from the helium circulation syst,ems that were established at CAPS. The cooling power was barely sufficient to cool the HTS power cable and the operating temperature, was limited by the available cooling power. Additionally, the cryogenic heat exchangers and the HTS current leads that can be coole,d with GHe were not developed when the original testbed was established. The 10+ years of research and development efforts at CAPS a,nd the collaborative projects with the HTS conductor manufacturers and HTS power system component developers have advanced the techn,ology significantly to the point that we now have the necessary knowhow to establish an updated testbed for HTS power devices with G,He cooled compact terminations suitable for the shipboard applications with synergistic cooling technologies and the necessary high,power densities.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jul 13, 2022
- Source ID
- N000142212330
Entities
People
- Sastry Pamidi
Organizations
- Florida State University
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy