High Temperature Superconducting Motor Cooled by On-Board Cryocooler

HTS (high temperature superconducting) motor that utilizes superconductor as the field winding has advantage of compactness, light weight and high efficiency, but it has an inherent disadvantage that the rotor must be cooled down at cryogenic temperature. Conventionally, HTS rotor was cooled by circulation of cryogenic fluid such as helium or neon, and the cooling system was installed outside of the motor to prevent it from being rotated. In this paper, however, the prototype of the HTS motor with an on-board cryocooler, is fabricated and tested. The experimental system is composed of the stator with conventional copper winding, the rotor with superconductor, and the rotating cryocooler as a novel concept of cooling system. The rotor is fabricated as the race-track coil with 2G, YBCO tape and situated in the 110 mm diameter cryostat. It is designed to minimize heat invasion from room temperature environment and be compatible with the coaxial structure of the cryocooler. The cryocooler is in physically and thermally contact with the HTS rotor while being rotated together. Two kinds of refrigerator, a Stirling refrigerator and an inline-type PTR (Pulse Tube Refrigerator) are used individually as the on-board cryocooler. The whole system is carefully integrated and fabricated for rotating stability. Several temperature sensors and voltage taps are installed to monitor the conditions of the HTS rotor and the cryocooler while their signals are acquired by the bluetooth data acquisition system during the operation. The HTS motor is successfully operated with 120 rpm of rotating speed. In the rotating test, 70 A current is supplied to the superconducting rotor. Further developmental design issues for on-board cryocooling system are addressed and discussed in this paper.