Proceedings of 2015 IEEE International Conference on ID5016

Applied Superconductivity and Electromagnetic Devices

Shanghai, China, November 20-23, 2015

Effects of Inner Air Gaps on the Leakage Field

Optimization of HTS Transformer Windings
Feng Mei Li, Jian Xun Jin Ri Ming Sun, Yong Ping Zhu, Xiao Yuan Chen
Center of Applied Superconductivity Chang Long Tang School of Engineering
and Electrical Engineering Chengdu Shuangxing Transformer Co., Sichuan Normal University
University of Electronic Science and Ltd Chengdu 611731, China
Technology of China Chengdu 611630, China chenxy44@sina.com
Chengdu 611731, China
jxjin@uestc.edu.cn

Abstract—High temperature superconducting (HTS) transformer

is favored to reduce the energy loss by replacing normal II. THE EFFECTS OF AIR GAP DISTANCES
conductor windings with superconducting windings. In order to In the designed 10 kVA HTS transformer, the relative
reduce perpendicular field component around the HTS windings, position of HV and LV windings is shown in Fig. 1. Due to
the air gaps insider the windings are optimized and discussed to convergent leakage magnetic field between the HV and LV
suit practical HTS transformer development.
windings, the method to increase the air gap distance d
Keywords-HTS transformer; HTS windings; magnetic field;
between HV and LV windings could be used to reduce the
flux density; air gap leakage magnetic field. The perpendicular magnetic field
distributions in the cases of d = 10 mm, 20 mm, 30 mm and 40
I. INTRODUCTION mm are shown in Fig. 2.
The benefits of high temperature superconducting (HTS) HV windings
transformers mainly include lighter and smaller units, higher
efficiency, fewer hazards and reduction of environmental
pollution comparing to conventional ones [1,2]. The adoption
of HTS tapes is becoming a suitable and interesting alternative
to copper for windings in transformers. The perpendicular field d LV windings
Core
component around the HTS windings degrades the HTS
performance more seriously over the parallel field component.
To improve the critical current and thus to reduce the AC loss Figure 1. The relative position of HV and LV winding.
of the HTS windings, the optimization of winding structure is
necessary for reducing the perpendicular field component.
In the previous work, a single-phase 10 kVA, 220 V / 24 V
HTS transformer has been conceptually designed in [3]. Its
main parameters are shown in Table I [3]. This paper will
further discuss the effects of air gaps on the performance of the
10 kVA HTS transformer windings.

TABLE I. MAIN PARAMETERS OF 10 KVA HTS TRANSFORMER

Diameter 100 mm
(a) (b) (c) (d)
Iron core Cross-section area 6340 mm2
Figure 2. Perpendicular magnetic field distributions around the HV and LV
Magnetic density 1.7 T windings with different distances d: (a) d = 10 mm; (b) d = 20 mm; (c) d = 30
Voltage per turn 2.4 V/turn mm; (d) d = 40 mm.
HV-turns 92
HV-internal radius 90 mm The maximum perpendicular magnetic flux densities Bx(//c)
HV-external radius 94 mm along the top edge of HV and LV windings are shown in Fig. 3.
Windings HV-height 150 mm It can be seen that the Bx(//c) decreases as d becomes larger.
LV-turns 10 However, the larger distance will also increases the volume of
LV-internal radius 114 mm the HTS windings and iron core, and thus increases the capital
LV-external radius 116 mm cost of the HTS windings. The required tape usage of the LV
LV-height 150 mm windings le is as shown in Fig. 4. Therefore, an optimally
selected air gap distribution between the HV and LV windings

978-1-4673-8107-9/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE 19

is necessary to balance the perpendicular field and tape usage 0.35 T when the number n of the axial air gaps increases to
in the practical prototype development. one and two, respectively. However, it should be noted that
0.0195 the larger number n will also cause the increment of the height
0.019 of the HV and LV windings, which further increases the
0.0185 volumes (V) and capital costs of the iron core.
Bx(//c) / T

0.018
0.0175 0.05
0.017 HV-LV
0.0165

Bx(//c) / T
HV-LV-HV
0.016
0.0155 0
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
d / mm
Figure 3. The relation between the Bx(//c) and d. -0.05
0 15 30 45 60 75 90 105 120 135 150
l / mm
9000
8500 Figure 6. Bx(//c) from the lower edge to upper edge of the inner wall in the
8000 LV winding.
le / mm

7500
7000
6500
6000
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
d / mm
Figure 4. The relation between the le and d.

III. THE EFFECTS OF AIR GAP NUMBERS

A. Analysis on Numbers of Radial Air Gaps
Besides to increase the air gap distance between HV and
LV windings, the number of the air gaps can be also increases (a) (b) (c)
to reduce the perpendicular field. In practice, the HV winding Figure 7. Perpendicular magnetic field distributions around the HV and LV
is divided into two parts, with one part inside the LV winding windings: (a) no axial air gap, (b) one axial air gap, (c) two axial air gaps.
and another outside the LV winding. This so-called HV-LV-
HV structure results in weaker leakage magnetic field around 21
20.9
the HV and LV windings, as shown in Fig. 5 and Fig. 6. l is the 20.75
distance from the lower edge to the upper edge of the inner 20.6
V / m3

wall in the LV winding. The maximum Bx(//c) is reduced from 20.45

20.3
about 0.5 T to about 0.38 T when the HV-LV-HV structure is 20.15
adopted. In addition, the HV-LV-HV structure also reduces the 20
volume of a single winding and is easy to install inside the
0 0.5 1 1.5 2
cryogenic dewar. n
Figure 8. V with numbers of different axial air gap (n).

(a) (b)
Figure 5. Perpendicular magnetic field distributions around the HV and LV
windings: (a) HV-LV structure; (b) HV-LV-HV structure.
B. Analysis on Numbers of Axial Air Gaps
To further reduce the perpendicular magnetic field around
the HV and LV windings, both the HV and LV windings can
be divided into several axial parts with additional axial air
gaps inserted. As shown in Fig. 7 and Fig. 8, the maximum
Bx(//c) is reduced from about 0.5 T to about 0.42 T and about
IV. CONCLUSIONS
The effects of inner air gaps in the HTS windings have
been studied in the paper. The results obtained show that the
distances and numbers of the air gaps inside the HV and LV
windings have positive effects on the perpendicular field
reduction and HTS performance improvement. In the practical
HTS transformer development, the air gap distances and
numbers should be optimized to suit practical HTS
transformer development.
References
[1] X. Y. Chen, and J. X. Jin, “Analysis and simulation of a 10 kVA HTS
transformer,” Nature Sciences, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 20-23, 2008.
[2] S. Mehta, N. Aversa, and M. S. Walker, “Transforming transformers,”
IEEE Spectrum, vol. 34, no. 7, pp. 43-49, 1997.
[3] X. Y. Chen, J. X. Jin, Y. G. Guo, and J. G. Zhu, “Design and analysis of
a 10 kVA HTS transformer,” International Conference on Electrical
Machines and Systems, pp. 4302-4304, Wuhan, China, Oct. 17-20, 2008.

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