Composite Heat Sink Material for Superconducting Tape in Fault Current Limiter Applications

Abstract

We enhanced the performance of superconducting tapes during quenching by coating the tapes with various composites, with regards to the application of such coated systems in superconducting fault current limiters. In composition of the coating, we varied the type of epoxy matrix, the content of ceramic filler particles and the use of reinforcement in order to optimize the thermal and the mechanical stability of the coated tapes. By this way modified superconducting tapes were able to reduce the maximum temperature 170 °C of not modified superconducting tape to 55 °C during the quench with electric field up to 130 V m−1.

Experimental and Numerical Analysis of High-Temperature Superconducting Tapes Modified by Composite Thermal Stabilization Subjected to Thermomechanical Loading

“…After reaching the temperature of glass transition, the increasing trend continues, however, with a higher slope. These measurements showed that higher SiC content results in a mild shifting of T g to lower values (see Figure 2) [24].…”

“…The CTE in the temperature range from −200 • C to 200 • C for all composite systems was determined on the base of our previous study [24] and is depicted in Figure 2. The CTE of SB11 was supplemented to −200 • C according to Swenson et al [27].…”

“…The composite thermal stabilization, used in this study, is based on an epoxy resin matrix from Stycast 2850 FT (cured with Catalyst 11), which is specifically designed to resist thermal shocks, and has been used in a number of cryogenic applications, such as potting of superconducting magnet coils [22,23]. As a suitable filler, a SiC powder of various particle size and angular grains was chosen, based on our previous studies [24,25], where the thermophysical properties of several composite systems were investigated. The latter epoxy resin contains in as delivered state about 45 vol.% of an Al 2 O 3 filler.…”

“…For the modeling, the thermophysical as well as the mechanical properties of all materials are essential for an accurate simulation. While the thermophysical properties of the Stycast-SiC composites were obtained by in-house measurements in our previous work [24], its mechanical properties were not available.…”

Improved Copper–Epoxy Adhesion by Laser Micro- and Nano-Structuring of Copper Surface for Thermal Applications

“…The curing time at 25 °C is 16–24 h for both catalysts, whereas the pot life is larger for the latter (60 vs. 45 min). This epoxy has a thermal conductivity ĸ ep ≈ 1 W m −1 K −1 at room temperature (RT) [ 21 ], which decreases to ≈0.64 W m −1 K −1 at T = 70 K [ 22 ]. Commercial copper plates (from Sanmetal, Zaragoza, Spain) of 99.9% purity and average roughness of 0.45 ± 0.11 μm were used.…”