Investigation of electrical characteristics of no-insulation coil wound with surface-processed HTS tape

This paper deals with the electrical characteristics of no-insulation coil wound with surface-processed HTS tape. The bypassing current path through turn-to-turn contacts within a coil is formed in the no-insulation coil, and this bypassing current path determines two characteristics: 1) self-protection and 2) charge-discharge delay. The amplitude of bypassing current is determined by contact resistance between the turn-to-turn contacts of the no-insulation coil. The surface roughness of the HTS tape is one of the parameters to change the contact resistance. The HTS tapes were processed to roughen by bead blast and abrasive paper, and the no-insulation coil is fabricated using processed HTS tape. We have studied the charge-discharge delay and self-protecting characteristic of each no-insulation coil by 1) sudden discharge tests and 2) overcurrent tests. The FEM simulations of contact resistance of no-insulation coil were carried out. The contact surface resistance of a case processed by abrasive paper has almost three times larger than that of reference no-insulation coil, and a case processed by bead blast presents almost same contact surface resistance with reference no-insulation coil.