Reducing Conductor Usage in Superconducting Machines by Multiple Power Supplies

This paper presents and applies a method of reducing the needed amount of superconductor in a superconducting machine by supplying the superconductor from multiple power supplies. The method is presented and validated experimentally in a constructed prototype. Thereafter, a superconducting tape is tested experimentally for allowable current density in a flux density spanning from 0 to 16 T and a temperature range from 5 K to 85 K. Using the experimental data from the superconductor, the proposed method is applied to minimize the usage of superconductor in a 10-MW superconducting direct drive wind turbine generator.