Superconducting fault current limiter development

The authors have developed and tested a 400-V 100-A-class fault current limiter wound with AC superconducting wire with ultrafine NbTi filaments. The limiter consists of noninductively wound superconducting trigger coils and a superconducting limiting coil which acts as a reactor. Excessive fault currents initiate quenching in the trigger coils and these currents, which have flown in trigger coils in nonfault conditions, are commutated from the trigger coils to the limiting coil. In an experiment, a fault current level was successfully limited to 120 A with a limiter whose terminal voltage at the limiting condition was 420 V