5401304 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 23, NO.

3, JUNE 2013

Flow Resistance Experiments in HTS Cable Form

Jacob T. Kephart, Brian K. Fitzpatrick, Peter Ferrara, Michael Pyryt, Jason Miller, and Clare Nadig

Abstract—High-temperature superconducting cables have ap-

plication in the Navy for power cables as well as degaussing cables.
The current interest is in using a gaseous cryogen circulated by
means of a cryogenic fan as the cooling media for the HTS con-
ductor. Flow through this style of cable is through an eccentrically
situated corrugated annular region. Correlations do not currently
exist for this arrangement since it is not a simple configuration.
Experiments were carried out to measure pressure drop with var-
ied flow rate of air and nitrogen through 10-m sections of tubing. A
variety of tubing configurations was used including smooth tube,
eccentric smooth annulus, and eccentric corrugated annulus with
HTS wire bundle forming the inner filling material. A method
was developed for comparing the relative flow resistance of tubing
configuration, which included determining an effective hydraulic
diameter based on observed data set fit to the Darcy-Weisbach
equation and the Colebrook equation. The effective hydraulic
diameter allowed for easy comparison of flow impedance for all
configurations regardless of specific flow conditions.
Index Terms—Flow resistance, fluid flow, HTS degaussing, Navy Fig. 1. HTS DG cable versus traditional copper DG cable tabletop display.
degaussing system, superconducting coils.
TABLE I
G AS AND L IQUID C RYOGEN
I. I NTRODUCTION

H IGH TEMPERATURES superconductor (HTS) have en-

abled a paradigm shift in expected power densities of
electrical systems. It is well known that HTS materials have
shown very high current densities on the order of 2 MA/cm2
at 77 K compared to less than 1000 A/cm2 in typical copper
conductors. The effective current densities are a bit lower when
considering the superconductor stabilizing material and cryo-
genic environment encasement but can still show a volumetric
benefit of 10–20 times less than that of copper. It was shown
by Fitzpatrick et al. [1], [2] that using superconductor cables
instead of copper cables in the degaussing system for U.S.
Navy’s LPD-17 class ship could save 80% of the copper system
weight. Fig. 1 shows the copper DG cable equivalent to a single
HTS DG cable of 4000 Ampere-turns.
Motivated by this potential weight savings, system demon-
strations were conducted [3], [4]. One consideration to using
HTS cables on navy ships is using a cryogen that minimizes risk
to sailor safety in the event of a system breach. Gaseous helium
was identified as an alternative to liquid nitrogen as cryogen
to help reduce possibility of creating asphyxiation hazards.
However, this also poses challenges over using liquid cryogens.
Manuscript received October 9, 2012; accepted December 26, 2012. Date
of publication January 4, 2013; date of current version February 1, 2013. This
work was supported by the Office of Naval Research and conducted by the
Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division.
J. T. Kephart, B. K. Fitzpatrick, P. Ferrara, M. Pyryt, and J. Miller are
with the Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division, Philadelphia,
PA 19112 USA (e-mail: jacob.kephart@navy.mil; brian.fitzpatrick@navy.mil;
peter.j.ferrara@navy.mil; michael.pyryt@navy.mil; jules.pienkos@navy.mil).
C. Nadig was with Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division,
Philadelphia, PA 19112 USA (e-mail: c.g.nadig@gmail.com).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TASC.2012.2237222
U.S. Government work not protected by U.S. copyright.
As shown in Table I, the specific heat of helium is greater than
that of liquid nitrogen on a mass basis; however, the volumetric
heat capacity of helium is extremely low.
The low volumetric heat capacity results in a much higher
volumetric flow rate in a cable than would be required with a
liquid cryogen. Since pressure drop is proportional to density
times velocity squared, the hydraulic power required for flow
of the gaseous cryogen can be orders of magnitude higher than
that of a liquid cryogen.
Fig. 2. Shows a simplified analysis based on well-known
flow characteristics in smooth tubes. It clearly shows that liquid
nitrogen is the superior cryogen in terms required hydraulic
power for a given temperature rise across a smooth cryo-
stat. Hydraulic power must be considered since all the power
ultimately converts to heat addition in the cryogenic space.
This loss directly affects the temperature of the cryocooler’s
cold head since the cryogenic cooling system typically is not
throttled. It operates at full capacity and removes as much heat
from the system as the unit’s capacity map allows. This smooth
tube analysis shows the penalty suffered by using a gaseous
cryogen and also suggests the relatively low importance of
accurate characterization of flow losses in a system that uses
a liquid cryogen instead of a gaseous cryogen.
Flow through an HTS cable assembly is not the same as flow
through a smooth tube. The wetted wall of the cryostat is in the
form of helical corrugations as seen in Fig. 3. Additionally, the
KEPHART et al.: FLOW RESISTANCE EXPERIMENTS IN HTS CABLE FORM
Fig. 2. Comparison of hydraulic power required to achieve the a mass flow
that for a given allowable temperature rise due to heat in leakage across a
100 m length of 21 mm ID smooth bore cryostat for liquid nitrogen and gaseous
helium.
Fig. 3. Cross-section of a Nexans flexible cryostat [9]. 1—Inner corrugated
stainless steel tubing. 2—Multi layer insulation (MLI). 3—Polymer support
and spacing material. 4—Vacuum space. 5—Outer corrugated stainless steel
tubing. 6—Outer cable sheathing.
HTS conductor bundle may or may not be formed to provide a
smooth surface for fluid flow.
II. E XISTING C ORRELATIONS
Two correlations exist for pressure drop through corrugated
bellows, which are similar in appearance to helically corru-
gated tubing. The development of these by Hawthorne & von
Helms [5] and Kauder [6] are fundamentally different in their
approach. Hawthorne & von Helms developed an expression
by treating the bellows as a series of expansions. Alternately,
Kauder took an approach which followed the standard Darcy-
Weisbach equation, and developed an expression for friction
factor from experimental data. Weiscend and Van Sciver [7]
previously evaluated the accuracy of using these two cor-
relations for a smaller geometry corrugated bellows outside
of their original development and noted that extrapolation of
these correlations did not accurately predict their experimental
results. Due to the variety of geometric configurations in corru-
gated bellows or tubing, a correlation should generally not be
extrapolated outside of those used in the development of the
correlation.
In general, the industry standard rule of thumb to estimate
pressure drop in corrugated tubing is simply to determine the
friction factor for flow through a smooth tube of equivalent
size and multiply it by a factor of 4. Fig. 4 shows the ratio of
5401304
Fig. 4. Pressure drop ratio of corrugated tube to smooth tube for Hawthorne
& von Helms and Kauder correlation applied to a 100-m section of 21 mm and
10 mm cryostat flowing 50 K helium gas at 10 atm.
predicted pressure drop in corrugated tubing to that of smooth
tubing for the two existing correlations.
It shows that for the larger cryostat sizes, the rule of thumb
agrees well with the predictions of the correlations. However,
with the smaller cryostat size the correlations diverge from the
rule of thumb and from each other.
III. E XPERIMENTAL S ETUP
The current interest is understating the flow resistance not
specifically through corrugated tubing, but the effects of filling
that corrugated region with an obstruction in the form of an
HTS cable. Gaining understanding of this will allow for a cable
system to be designed where mass flow has been maximized,
thereby minimizing the temperature drop across the cryostat
for an acceptable amount of hydraulic losses. Many challenges
exist in designing a cryogenic gas flow experiment. Some of
these include:
1) Measuring mass flow for a wide range of cryogenic
temperatures and pressures.
2) Managing and accounting for heat leak into the cryogen.
3) Providing pressurized cryogenic gas.
4) Minimizing the amount of vented cryogen.
All of these issues are able to be overcome, but it would result
in a costly experimental setup. To minimize costs and time to
acquire data, an experimental setup was created that uses room
temperature nitrogen that matches the Reynolds numbers of
interest in a cryogenic system (Fig. 5).
The gas used was either nitrogen or compressed air and its
mass flow rate was directly controlled to a specified level by
a Brooks Instruments Smart Mass Flow Controller. Absolute
pressure was measured by a digital pressure gauge with a tap 1
meter into the test section. Differential pressure was measured
by two analog gauges, 0–1 psi and 0–10 psi. The inlet and outlet
temperatures were measured using thermocouples located in
the flow stream. Additional analog flow meters were located
after the test section. Finally, throttling valves were located at
the end of the test rig to control the pressure in the test section.
5401304 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 23, NO. 3, JUNE 2013

TABLE II
T UBING C ONFIGURATION AND E FFECTIVE D IAMETER

Fig. 5. Schematic of the flow resistance experimental setup for a 10-m test
section.

B. Formulation of Effective Hydraulic Diameter

A test matrix was set up in a multiple different configurations
of tubing fill to be tested. The diameter of the tubing, smooth or
corrugated surface, and amount of HTS conductor were varied.
As a means to capture the characteristics of performance using
the experimentally measured pressure drop and flow conditions,
an effective hydraulic diameter was determined by satisfying
the Darcy-Weisbach equation and the Colebrook equation for
an assumed smooth surface condition.

L ρV 2
ΔP = f .
Dh 2

Or in terms of mass flow which was measured:

L 8 ṁ2
Fig. 6. Experimentally measured pressure drop compared to that predicted by ΔP = f .
correlations agree to 30%.
Dh5 π 2 ρ

Where the friction factor, f , is found by satisfying the

A. Validation Colebrook equation [8]:
Three cryostats with helical corrugations were tested:  
1 ε 2.51
10 mm, 14 mm and 21 mm without any internal obstruction. √ = 2 log + √ .
The experimental results were compared to the predicted pres- f 3.7 Dh Re f
sure drops from the Hawthorne & von Helms as well as the
The surface roughness, ε, was arbitrarily treated as that of a
Kauder correlation. The results are shown in Fig. 6. The accu-
smooth surface. Further refinement could be used to determine
racy of both correlations was within 30% of the experimental
an appropriate surface roughness, but is not done here. The
measurements for the flow rates measured. The Hawthorne
Reynolds number was defined as:
& von Helms only claimed an accuracy of 30% which was
satisfied. Discrepancy between the Kauder correlation and the ρV Dh
experimental results would be expected since this geometry Re = .
μ
is extrapolated from the original development. Additionally
a portion of the observed error may stem from error in the Or in terms of mass flow:
measurements or geometric differences. It would be expected
that additional error would be observed at higher flow rates 4 ṁ
Re = .
for smaller tubing as indicated by Fig. 4, however this was πμDh
impractical to measure with the current setup. In any event,
these results provide some confidence in the effectiveness of The unknowns from these equations are the Re, f , and Dh
the correlations as well as the experimental setup. which can be solved for numerically.
KEPHART et al.: FLOW RESISTANCE EXPERIMENTS IN HTS CABLE FORM
Fig. 7. Experimentally measured pressure drop compared to that predicted by
the using the determined effective hydraulic diameter agree to 30%.
IV. R ESULTS
The determined hydraulic diameters for a variety of test cases
are shown in Table II.
The value of the hydraulic diameter was determined for each
configuration for a range of fluid flow as indicated by the
Reynolds number. At each flow condition, a small deviation
in determined hydraulic diameter was observed. To develop a
single hydraulic diameter for a configuration, a linear fit was
applied to the data. Fig. 7 shows the measured vs. modeled
differential pressure using the determined effective hydraulic
diameter for each cable configuration. The modeled pressure
drop agrees with the experimentally measured pressure drop to
within 30%.
There are a few sources of potential error in this develop-
ment, including accuracy of the analog differential pressure
gauges, as well as the assumption of treating the surface rough-
5401304
ness as smooth. Roughness could be treated as an unknown
parameter and solved for by comparing multiple data sets but
for simplicity of development, this was not done.
V. C ONCLUSION
This development of an effective hydraulic diameter gives a
single number characterization for comparison of flow through
different configurations. This effective hydraulic diameter is
developed solely from flow characteristics and not from phys-
ical geometry. This provides single parameter that can be used
to quickly assess the relative impact flow characteristics for
a variety of cable configurations without resorting to detailed
analysis of each configuration.
R EFERENCES
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TR-2004/030, Oct. 2004.
[2] Fitzpatrick et al., “High temperature superconducting degaussing system
assessment,” in Proc. ASNE Day, 2005.
[3] B. Fitzpatrick, J. Kephart, and E. M. Golda, “Characterization of gaseous
helium flow cryogen in a flexible cryostat for naval applications of high
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[4] J. T. Kephart, B. K. Fitzpatrick, P. Ferrara, M. Pyryt, J. Pienkos, and
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[5] R. C. Hawthorne and H. C. von Helms, “Flow in corrugated hose,” Product
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[6] K. Kauder, Dissipation inkompressibler Medien in Rohrleitungen, vol. 7.
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[9] Standard Transfer Lines, Nexans, 2012.