Performance of a conduction-cooled high-temperature superconducting bearing

We report rotational loss measurements for a high-temperature superconducting (HTS) bearing whose cooling consists of a thermal conduction path to the cold head of a cryocooler. Losses have been measured for rotational rates up to 14,500 rpm at different HTS temperatures. The rotational losses decrease with decreasing HTS temperature. For temperatures that can be obtained in a liquid-nitrogen thermosiphon system, at a given speed and gap, the loss of the conduction-cooled HTS bearing is not significantly higher than the loss of a nearly identical HTS bearing cooled by flowing nitrogen from the thermosiphon.