AC Loss and Contact Resistance of Resistive Type Fault Current Limiter Using YBCO Coated Conductors
Heat loss is one of the most important issues for resistive type superconducting fault current limiters (SFCL) built from YBaCuO-coated conductors. A newly designed 400 V SFCL module by Smart Grid Center, Shanghai Jiaotong University (SJTU) is tested and modeled in order to get a clear understanding of its characteristics of heat losses. Two main losses, including AC loss of superconducting tapes and the losses due to contact resistance inside the SFCL module are investigated. Experiments based on “electrical method” are set up to measure the AC loss at 77 K with lock-in amplifier conditions. Meanwhile, losses from the contact resistance are calculated by analyzing their V-I curve. To better understand the behavior of the AC loss in SFCL module and verify the accuracy of the experimental results, modeling analysis is performed by means of a 2-dimensional finite element modeling (FEM). Numerical results show that the results are very close to what we get from experimental method. Detailed results will be presented and the heat losses of 10 kV SFCL consisting of about 25 modules in series are going to be discussed.