Design research on the conductor of 10 kA class HTS DC power cable

High temperature superconducting (HTS) DC power cable shows a wide application prospect in the field of power transmission for its nearly lossless and rather high capacity. A 360 m/10 kA HTS DC power cable system, which connects the rectifier output of a substation with the bus bar of an electrolytic aluminium cell, will be put into operation at Henan Zhongfu Industrial Co., Ltd. As one of the items in this project, a 5 m/10 kA HTS DC power cable was developed, which is used to investigate the conductor design, fabrication, current-carrying capacity and stability of the 360 m/10 kA HTS power cable.The HTS DC power cable core consists of five conductor layers wound with spliced Bi-2223 wires with the length of 600 m. The cable core has five layers and 23 conductors in each layer with the outer diameter of 45.42 mm. The superconducting power cable is fabricated and tested. The critical current is about 14.3 kA at 77 K. The superconducting power cable is charged to 10 kA with rate of 10 A/s and operates at steady-state for 30 min.In this paper, the 10 kA HTS DC power cable design, fabrication and test are presented. The experimental research of the performance of spliced superconducting wire and charging, steady-state operating performance of the cable was carried out.

► Performance of the spliced superconducting wire.
► The key design process and parameters of HTS power cable.
► The special winding equipment and welding technology are developed.
► The power cable operated well for 30 min and critical current is 14.3 kA.
► Test shows the performance can be satisfied with the 360 m/10 kA HTS DC power cable.