Status of a 200-Meter DC Superconducting Power Transmission Cable After Cooling Cycles

We constructed a facility of a 200-m HTS power transmission test cable (CASER-II) in 2010. Generally, an HTS cable contracts about 0.3% when it is cooled from room temperature to liquid nitrogen (LN2) temperature. The contraction of the 200-m HTS cable corresponds to 0.6 m. In order to realize the HTS power transmission system, it is an essential issue to absorb the mechanical stress of the HTS cable during the cycles of cooling-down and heating-up. The CASER-II uses smooth pipes as the cryogenic pipe for the cable line to reduce the pressure drop of the liquid nitrogen flow, whereas the other HTS cables use corrugated pipes to absorb the mechanical stress. The CASER-II employed (1) the movable terminals at the cable end, and (2) the extendable bellows inserted in the cryogenic pipe, to absorb the contraction of 0.6 m in cooling cycles. Even at the 4th cooling-down test, no damage was observed in the CASER-II. Use of the smooth cryogenic pipe enabled low pressure drop with low LN2 flow rate, and negative pressure drop appeared at less than 5 L/sec of the LN2 flow rate. This negative pressure drop was caused by the LN2 flow assisted by siphon effect due to the difference of LN2 density along the cryogenic pipe line with elevation of 2.6 m.

I. Introduction

Recently, several projects of DC superconducting power transmission (SC-PT) were proposed and started [1]–[4]. They target the long power transmission [1], the link of three electrical AC grids [2], and the power transmission in a factory [3] and in a railways [4]. Previous to these projects, we started research program on the DC SC-PT system and constructed a 20-m DC HTS cable test facility (CASER-I) in Chubu University in 2006 [5]. Depending on the results achieved in the CASER-I [6], we constructed a 200-m DC SC-PT cable test facility (CASER-II) in 2010 also in Chubu University [7].