The Estimation of the Current Distribution on the HTS Cable by Measuring the Circumferential Magnetic Field

A method for estimating the current distribution on the HTS strands which is composed of the HTS power cable was developed. A group of hall sensors which are well-arranged around the HTS cable were used in measuring the circumferential magnetic field. The current distribution can be calculated by solving a matrix equation which contains the measured magnetic field values as its elements. The contribution of the magnetic field generated by each strand in each hall sensor should be known to solve the matrix equation. The contribution can be calculated by FEM analysis simulating the HTS cable or can be measured using a duplicated short HTS cable of which current terminals are modified to apply the current to each strand independently. A simple computer simulation was performed to investigate the feasibility of the method and the performance characteristics of the method was examined for the HTS cable which is composed of several HTS strands. In this paper, a simple mathematics for estimating the current distribution and the results of experiment using the designed and manufactured measuring apparatus will be introduced.