Effect of Winding on the Electrical Performance of REBCO based CORC® Superconducting Cable/Wire

Superconducting cables/ wires can transfer electrical current with zero transmission losses. The High-Temperature Superconductors (HTS) that can be cooled using liquid nitrogen can be promising candidates for such power transmission and other applications. The Rare-Earth-BariumCopper-Oxide (REBCO) based superconducting tapes are commonly used in HTS cables. The Conductor on Round Core (CORC) cable is one of the best configurations for cables. It is very attractive due to its symmetrical shape and has the ability to use in cable with a smaller core diameter. The REBCO tape is wound around a central core to form the cable. During the winding of REBCO tape over the central core, different mechanical loads are acting on the REBCO tape. This mechanical load may lead to the degradation of the tape due to induced strain. This in turn may affect the current-carrying property of the tape. Thus the electrical performance of the superconducting tape may get affected during the winding process. Therefore, in this study, the induced strain is computed for different cases of core diameter, winding angle, and thickness of various layers of the tape. This is computed by creating a FEA model in COMSOL Multiphysics and simulations are carried out. The results obtained are substituted in the analytical equation to determine the critical current retention of the tapes. Thus the changes in the electrical performance of superconducting cables are evaluated under varying winding parameters. The results obtained shows that the decrease in the core diameter decreases the current carrying capacity of the cable. Increasing the thickness of constituting layers of the tape decreases the capacity of the cable to carry the current. The maximum value of critical current retention is observed at 45o of winding angle and is found to be the best angle for the winding. The results obtained would help to set the limits for the winding parameters. This would make sure that the electrical performance of such HTS CORC cables made of REBCO tapes is not affected under the winding process