Thermal Characteristics of REBCO Coil in a Wireless Power Transmission System for the Railway Vehicle in Liquid Nitrogen

A wireless power transmission (WPT) system using the high temperature superconducting (HTS) coil for a railway vehicle is required to transmit the electric power of several hundred kW in a short time (60 s). In order to design the WPT system using HTS coil with the thermal stability, and it is necessary to clarify the thermal characteristics of the HTS coil at the operating current in kHz band and the operating conditions considering thermal stability in the WPT system. We analyzed the frequency characteristics of the critical current in the HTS coil above 1 kHz and investigated the operating conditions considering thermal stability in the WPT system for the railway vehicle using HTS coil in liquid nitrogen. As a result, the critical current of the HTS coil in the kHz band decreased with the frequency. This is because the AC loss in the HTS coil increased with the frequency, and the critical current density of the HTS coil decreased with increasing the surface temperature. In order to design the HTS coil with thermal stability in the kHz band, and it is necessary to operate the HTS coil on alternating current less than about 50% of the critical current measured by direct current. We found that the thermally stable WPT system capable of fast charging for 60 seconds can be realized by operating current at the frequency of about 2 kHz.