ELECTRIC WIRE & CABLE, ENERGY

Development of Superconducting Coil for Ship PodPropulsion Motors

Koso FUJINO, Toshihiro HAYASHI, Takeshi SANAMI, Koji HISADA, Kazuya OHMATSU and Toru OKAZAKI

The development of a high-temperature superconducting motor for pod-propulsion system for marine application is currently conducted by an industry-university collaborative research group. The group has developed an axial gap-type motor that consists of superconducting armature coils and permanent magnets. This motor was designed to give an output of 400 kW. As a member of the collaborative research group, Sumitomo Electric Industries developed the superconducting armature coil based on the results of the analyses of magnetic field, electromagnetic force and heat. Various tests including the locked rotor test were performed on the motor and it was proven that the motor has a 400-kW output.

1. Introduction
The Kyoto Protocol adopted at COP3, which requires developed nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, has brought about large-scale efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in all industry sectors. The transportation sector, including such means as automobiles, trains and coastal-shipping vessels, is responsible for around twenty percent of all carbon dioxide emissions in Japan, and the amount of emissions is increasing year by year. In the automobile industry, development of environmental cars like fuel-cell vehicles is moving ahead at a fast pitch. In coastal shipping, the use of high-temperature superconducting motor in pod-propulsion systems is lately attracting considerable attentions. A pod-propulsion system is usually suspended below the bottom of the ships stern and it consists of a motor installed inside a pod-shaped container and a generator. One of the advantages of this system is that it has a smaller propulsion resistance than the standard propulsion systems that are currently in use. However, the problem with the pod-propulsion system is that the resistance to propulsion does not become small when a normal-conducting motor using standard copper coils is used. Thus, an industry-university collaborative research group was formed to carry out the development of a high-temperature superconducting motor (HTS motor) for pod-propulsion systems that can achieve a larger motor output than a copper motor of the same size. The members of the collaborative research group are listed in Table 1. Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. is engaged in the development of the high-temperature superconducting coil (HTS coil). In 2005 the collaborative research group developed a high-temperature superconducting pod-propulsion system (HTS podpropulsion system) that provided an output of 12.5 kW and successfully demonstrated that the HTS pod-propulsion system is highly effective (1). As the first step in developing a MW-class HTS pod-propulsion system, since 2006 the collaborative research group is carrying

Table 1. Industry-university collaborative research group

Organization (alphabetical order) IHI Corporation Fuji Electric Systems Co., Ltd. Hitachi, Ltd. Nakashima Propeller Co., Ltd. Niigata Power Systems Co., Ltd. Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. Taiyo Nippon Sanso Corporation University of Fukui (Professor H. Sugimoto)

Role Project management Electric power system design and supply Electric power system design Propeller design and supply Pod propulsion mechanical design and supply High-temperature superconducting coil design and supply Cooling system design and supply Electric and magnetic circuit design

out the development of the permanent-magnet hightemperature superconducting motor (PM-HTS motor) that has an output of 400 kW and is applicable to coastal-shipping vessels like cement carriers and ferries. In this paper Sumitomo Electrics development of HTS coils is described and the load test results of the 400-kW PM-HTS motor (2) developed by the collaborative research group are reported.

2. Outline of PM-HTS motor

The schematic diagram of a PM-HTS motor is shown in Fig. 1. The developed 400-kW PM-HTS motor is an axial-gap motor and it consists of the magnetic field systems made of permanent magnets and an armature with HTS coils. The HTS coils are cooled to around 68 K by a cyclic refrigeration system using liquid nitrogen. The HTS coil armature is put between the two magnetic field systems that consist of permanent magnets. The rotary axes are attached to the two magnetic field systems and not to the HTS coils. Because the HTS

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coils are secured, the PM-HTS motor does not require rotary joints for circulating the coolant. The critical current (Ic) of a high-temperature superconducting wire becomes higher as the coolant temperature becomes lower. The HTS motors developed up to this day by institutions around the world were generally cooled by coolants that have lower temperature than liquid nitrogen, such as liquid helium and liquid neon. However, these coolants are very expensive and their latent heats are small in contrast with that of liquid nitrogen, so the cost for cooling becomes high. Using liquid nitrogen as a coolant leads to a much lower HTS motor cost, but Ic of a superconducting wire in liquid nitrogen is much lower in contrast with that in liquid helium or liquid neon. Lower Ic means that the magnetic flux in a coil declines and therefore results in the degradation of the output of an HTS motor. To resolve this problem of liquid nitrogen, the authors contrived to have an iron core called flux collector put into each HTS coil so that the magnetic flux is enhanced. This has allowed the HTS motor to generate an output of a practical level.

Table 2. Typical specifications of BSCCO wire adopted in HTS coil

Width Thickness Length Critical current (77K, self-field) Allowable tensile strength (RT) Allowable tensile strength (77K) Allowable bending diameter (RT)

4.20.2 mm 0.220.02 mm 1500 m max. >120 A 100 MPa 135 MPa 70 mm

times higher than Ic in liquid nitrogen temperature. An armature coil consisted of several double pancake coils each made by winding a superconducting wire in the circumferential direction (Fig. 2). The coil inductance and operating current were adjusted to suitable values so that the coils can be driven by a general-purpose inverter. The amplitudes of magnetic field and electromagnetic force applied to the superconducting wire and the coils thermal design should be taken into consideration in designing a coil. These were investigated in details by means of experiments on an actual motor model.

HTS Coil Double pancake coil

Permanent Magnet

Stack

Fig. 1. Structure of 400-kW permanent magnet HTS motor

3. Development of HTS motor

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of HTS coil

3-1 Design of HTS motor An HTS coil armature consists of six coils, which are two U-phase coils, two V-phase coils and two W-phase coils. Each coil is made by winding a superconducting wire. The superconducting wire used is Sumitomo Electrics DI-BSCCO (Dynamically-Innovative BSCCO) wire manufactured using the Companys original CT-OP (Controlled Over Pressure) sintering process. DIBSCCO has higher Ic than the conventional superconducting wires released from several companies, and it currently achieves Ic of more than 200 A (at 77 K under self-field) in a width of approximately 4 mm. This Ic value is the world record for highest Ic achieved by a practically used superconducting wire (3). The specifications of the superconducting wire used for the coils are shown in Table 2. This superconducting wire has a tape shape with an aspect ratio as shown in the table. The wires having Ic of more than 120 A (at 77 K under self-field) were adopted for the coils. The superconducting wire shows higher Ic in lower temperatures, and Ic at 68 K may be around 1.6

3-2 Magnetic field dependence of superconducting properties The Ic value of a superconducting wire decreases when a magnetic field is applied. When a magnetic field is applied to the surface of a tape in a perpendicular direction, Ic decreases more drastically than in the case where a parallel magnetic field is applied. This behavior is an essential nature of superconductors and must be considered when designing a superconducting coil. Figure 3 shows the Ic-B characteristics of a DI-BSCCO wire at 68 K. The straight line in the figure is the load line of the coil indicating the relationship between magnetic field and operating current. A coil should be designed in a way that the operating current is not higher than the current at the intersection of the Ic-B curve and the load line. The operating current of the armature coil of the motor drive was decided with the maximum magnetic field applied perpendicularly to the tape surface taken into consideration.

42 Development of Superconducting Coil for Ship Pod-Propulsion Motors

200 180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 0 0.2

Critical current Ic (A)

Parallel to tape surface Perpendicular to tape surface Load line

0.4

0.6

0.8

Magnetic Field (T)

Fig. 3. Magnetic field characteristics of BSCCO wire at 68 K

3-3 Electromagnetic force applied to superconducting wire A magnetic field is induced by conducting electricity to an HTS coil. Because of the Lorenz force that is generated by a current and a magnetic field, a coil is under a compressive stress in the axial direction (the direction double pancake coils are stacked) and a hoop stress in the radial direction. Therefore, HTS coils need to be designed to sufficiently withstand these stresses. Figure 4 shows the compressive stress distribution of the HTS coil in the axial direction. The stress balance occurs at the center of the coil, therefore the coil is not moved by the stress. However, the superconducting wire located in the coil center is under the maximum com-

0.18 Compressive stress (MPa) 0.16 0.14 0.12 0.1 0.08 0.06 0.04 0.02 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Double pancake coil No.

Fig. 4. Distribution of axial compressive stress applied to HTS coil

pressive stress. The durability of the HTS coil against the compressive stress was tested using a double pancake coil made for experimental purpose. The test result confirmed the fine durability of the coil, showing that the fracture resistance of the coil was higher than the electromagnetic compressive stress by two digits. Figure 5 is the distribution of the hoop stress applied to the coil. The hoop stress is the stress that causes the coil to expand in the radial direction, and the tensile stress is applied to the superconducting wire in the longitudinal direction of the wire. The vertical axis of Fig. 5 shows hoop stress converted to longitudinal tensile stress. The DI-BSCCO wire, which was manufactured using the CTOP process as mentioned previously, was used in assembling the coil and has not only high Ic but also improved mechanical properties compared with conventional superconducting wires. Table 2 shows that DIBSCCO has the tensile strength of more than 100 MPa at both room temperature and 77 K, the value high enough to withstand the strain applied to it due to the electromagnetic force. 3-4 Heat design of HTS coil Losses do not occur when HTS coils are operated with DC currents, but AC losses are generated when operated with AC currents. AC losses can be roughly divided into hysteresis losses, coupling losses and eddy current losses. The predominant AC loss in an HTS coil is hysteresis loss. In the stage of coil design, it is necessary that the hysteresis loss is estimated and the temperature rise is calculated so as to prevent the occurrence of thermal runway. The hysteresis loss of an HTS coil can be calculated from the alternating magnetic field and the current applied to the wire (4). The calorimetric measurement using liquid nitrogen was carried out to assess the heat generation of the HTS coil due to AC losses. Figure 6 shows the schematic diagram of the experimental setup. The HTS coil is placed in the inner container of a double-container cryostat. The inner and outer containers were filled with liquid nitrogen. A tube was installed to the inner container to collect vaporized nitrogen, and a gas flow meter was equipped to the tube to measure the flow volume of vaporized nitrogen. By measuring the flow volume per unit time of vaporized nitrogen and obtaining the latent heat of liquid nitrogen, the heat release value

0.8 0.7 Hoop stress (MPa) 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Double pancake coil No. Inner container

Power supply

Gas flow meter

Current lead N2 gas

coil

Liquid N2

Outer container

Fig. 5. Distribution of hoop stress applied to HTS coil

Fig. 6. Experimental setup for calorimetric measurement of liquid nitrogen temperature

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of the HTS coil is estimated. The experiment results obtained using the calorimetric method and the theoretical values are shown in Fig. 7. The good agreements were observed between the experimental and estimated values. The results of the AC loss experiments were reflected in the refrigeration system of the PM-HTS motor.

100

AC loss (W)

16.7Hz experiment 25.05Hz experiment 33.4Hz experiment 16.7Hz caliculation 25.05Hz caliculation 33.4Hz caliculation

10

1 10 Peak value of AC current (A) 100

Fig. 7. Results of calorimetric AC loss measurements

an appropriate quality control procedure. The qualities of materials and the Ic value, inductance and inner and outer diameters of coils were controlled completely following the flow chart shown in Fig. 8. A total of 270 double pancake coils including those for experimental use were fabricated. The system for fabricating coils was constructed under the aforementioned quality control system, and it took less than a month to fabricate all coils. 4-2 Test results of PM-HTS motor (2) A PM-HTS motor equipped with the above described armature coils made by Sumitomo Electric was tested under no-load conditions. The torque and current characteristics of the PM-HTS motor was evaluated by a locked rotor test. When an AC current of 540 A was sent into the coil, the torque of the motor was 14.5 kN. This result corresponds with a 380 kW output at 250 rpm. In this test, because of the problems of the test facilities, the maximum current was limited to 540 A. However, the current-torque curve obtained as a test result analytically demonstrated that the motor can achieve an output of 400 kW. The acceleration and deceleration tests were also performed, and the test results confirmed that the motor achieves smooth acceleration and deceleration.

4. Fabrication and tests of 400-kW PM-HTS motor 5. Conclusions

4-1 Fabrication of armature coil The double pancake coils fabricated for the armature coils of the 400-kW PM-HTS motor are targeted for use in civilian applications. Therefore, the manufacturing process of the coils was managed by implementing A 400-kW PM-HTS motor for pod-propulsion systems for ships was developed by an industry-university collaborative research group, and this prototype motor proved that it is technically feasible to achieve an output of 400 kW. The Ic value of DI-BSCCO used for coil windings is increasing year by year, and it should contribute to the increase of the output of the PM-HTS motor. While it is important to enhance motor output, considering that pod-propulsion systems will be introduced to the means of transportation such as ships and vessels in near future, it is also important to achieve the longterm reliability of motor systems and individual devices like armature coils. For example, it is assumed that oceangoing ships need to be maintenance-free for a long period of time. The authors believe that the future technical development of the PM-HTS motor should be not only in the improvement of motor output but also in the long-term system reliability.

inputting of materials

wire coiling

inspection before resin impregnation

resin impregnation

inputting of materials for coil construction

inspection after resin impregnation

6. Acknowledgement
The authors are grateful to Professor H. Sugimoto of the University of Fukui for his guidance and helpful comments on the structure of the PM-HTS motor and to Mr. T. Takeda, Mr. H. Togawa and Mr. T. Ohta of IHI Corporation for their cooperation in assessing the performance of the HTS coils.

construction of coil

shipping inspection

Fig. 8. Flow chart for constructing HTS coil

44 Development of Superconducting Coil for Ship Pod-Propulsion Motors

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

References Sugimoto, Hondou, Akita, Nishikawa, Tsuda, Tsuji, Okazaki, Ohashi; Presented at the Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan conference 2005, Tokushima University H. Sugimoto, T. Tsuda, T. Morishita, Y. Hondou, T. Takeda, H. Togawa, T. Oota, K. Ohmatsu, S. Yoshida; IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond., Vol.17, pp.1637-1640, 2007 Ayai, Kikuchi, Yamazaki, Yamade, Hata, Sato, Hayashi, Kato, Fujikami, Kobayashi, Ueno, Fujino; SEI Technical Review, p.103, No.169 (2006) M. Iwakuma, Y. Fukuda, M. Fukui, K. Kajikawa, K. Funaki; Physica C: Superconductivity, Volumes 392-396, 2003, Pages 1096-1101

Contributors (The lead author is indicated by an asterisk (*)).

K. FUJINO*
Assitant General Manager, Application Group, Superconductivity & Energy Technology Department

T. HAYASHI
Dr. Eng., Application Group, Superconductivity & Energy Technology Department

T. SANAMI
Application Group, Superconductivity & Energy Technology Department

K. HISADA
Advanced Production Systems Engineering Department, Plant & Productin Systems Engineering Division

K. OHMATSU
Manager, Application Group, Superconductivity & Energy Technology Department

T. OKAZAKI
Ph. D., Assitant Manager, Application Group, Superconductivity & Energy Technology Department

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