Abstract Body

Climate-driven incentives to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions yield increased focus on international transport, which accounts for 16.2% of the emissions. While electrification of the world’s automobile industry is commencing, driven by government policies and industry, large-scale polluters that transport large amounts of people or cargo, are not yet sufficiently addressed. Trains, airplanes, and ships all are of sufficient scale to accommodate superconducting technologies.

Commercial aviation alone accounts for about 2.5% of global carbon emissions. The number of passengers traveling by air is increasing at a rate of more than 4% annually, leading to estimates that the overall annual consumption of jet fuel will be approximately 120 billion liters by 2040. These numbers are in stark contrast to goals for the aviation sector that foresee a 75% reduction in CO2, a 90% reduction in NOx, and 65% lower perceived noise emissions, compared with a typical new aircraft in the year 2000. This calls for disruptive technological solutions, such as hybrid-electric propulsion systems for aviation, to reduce emissions. The maritime transportation can also achieve significant improvements from superconductivity. Electric propulsion is inherently more efficient since it allows including energy storage-systems that decouple production and consumption, thus allowing to operate the motors and generators at their maximum performance. The use of superconducting materials could make it possible to achieve the high power- densities and power-to-weight ratios required for aviation and maritime transportation. This work addresses state-of-the-art and the challenges for the commercial introduction of superconducting technologies in these two applications.

References

[1] H. Ritchie, M. Roser and P. Rosado (2020) - “CO₂ and Greenhouse Gas Emissions”, Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions' [Online Resource]

[2] M. Boll, et al., “A holistic system approach for short range passenger aircraft with cryogenic propulsion system,” Supercond. Sci. Technol., vol. 33, no. 4, 2020, doi: 10.1088/1361-6668/ab7779

[3] P. Cheetham, et al., “High Temperature Superconducting Power Cables for MVDC Power Systems of Navy Ships,” 2019 IEEE Electr. Sh. Technol. Symp. ESTS 2019, pp. 548–555, 2019, doi: 10.1109/ESTS.2019.8847830

Acknowledgment

The members of the transport group of the Superconductivity Global Alliance are gratefully acknowledged.

Figure 1. Sketch of the aircraft of the Cheetah project in the United Stated of America, from https://newatlas.com/nasa-cheeta-funding-aircraft-fuel-cell/59725/.

Keywords: Superconductivity in transport, Superconducting ship, Superconducting train, Superconducting aircraft

Abstract Body

The interest in large electric transport platforms such as electric aircraft and ships is increased to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector. Superconducting technologies will provide the necessary power density to achieve the electrification of large transport platforms [1-3]. Liquid hydrogen-fueled platforms provide the synergy to reduce the complexity of superconducting technologies because the liquid fuel at 20 K will serve as a cryogenic heat sink. Many government-funded research programs and the efforts by aircraft manufacturers are developing technology components necessary to realize the dream of zero emission aircraft and ships [2]. Also, significant investments are being made to establish hydrogen production and distribution infrastructure. High power density propulsion motors, generators, and power distribution systems are under development. It has been recognized that thermal management, electrical insulation, and safety are critical to success with hydrogen-fueled electric aircraft. Fuel cells and hydrogen burning generators are options for electrical power generation using hydrogen. Fuel cells have low efficiency and represent significant thermal loads that are difficult to manage on an aircraft. The lower volumetric energy density of hydrogen coupled with limited space available for fuel storage requires that the thermal loads be curtailed to the levels supported by the mass of liquid hydrogen necessary for fuel needs.

The presentation will briefly review various research and development efforts on electric ships and aircraft. It will discuss the absence of comprehensive research facilities required to develop the technologies, the need for broad collaborations and joint developments to quickly design and validate initial design options, and build and test prototype propulsion, power distribution, and cryogenic systems, and international efforts to establish such regional technology support centers.

The Center for Advanced Power Systems (CAPS) and the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering have established testbeds for high temperature superconducting power distribution systems, cryogenic electrical insulation systems, cryogenic fluid circulation systems, advanced AC loss measurement systems at LH2 temperature relevant to developing electric aircraft and ships [4-9]. The presentation will describe the facilities and examples of collaborative development efforts. The presentation will discuss the facilities, ongoing research, and opportunities for collaboration.

The R&D efforts of the NASA-funded University Leadership Initiative project, Integrated Zero-Emission Aviation (IZEA) [10 and 11] in the areas of superconducting technologies and cryogenic thermal management will be discussed briefly.

References

[1] Next-generation Aircraft Development | NEDO Green Innovation Fund Projects

[2] CHEETA | Center for High-Efficiency Electrical
Technologies for Aircraft | U of I (illinois.edu)

[3] ZEROe - Low carbon aviation - Airbus

[4] S. Telikapalli, P. Cheetham, C. H. Kim and S. V. Pamidi, "Helium Gas Cooled and Insulated Superconducting Coaxial Dipole Cable for Electric Transport," in IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation, vol. 30, no. 5, pp. 2165-2172, Oct. 2023, doi: 10.1109/TDEI.2023.3269008.

[5] P. Cheetham et al., "SuPErShip – A Multidisciplinary Collaborative Study on System-Level Benefits of Superconducting Power Devices on Electric Ships," in IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity, vol. 33, no. 5, pp. 1-4, Aug. 2023, Art no. 5401204, doi: 10.1109/TASC.2023.3256962.

[6] S. Telikapalli, J. Stright, P. Cheetham, C. H. Kim and S. Pamidi, "Failure Mode Effects and Analysis of Superconducting Power Distribution and Related Cryogenic Components for All-Electric Ship," in IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity, vol. 33, no. 5, pp. 1-6, Aug. 2023, Art no. 5400506, doi: 10.1109/TASC.2023.3243562.

[7] P. C. Saha et al., "CLEAN: Cryogenic Link for Electric Aircraft Propulsion," in IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity, vol. 33, no. 5, pp. 1-6, Aug. 2023, Art no. 3800406, doi: 10.1109/TASC.2023.3241600.

[8] van Der Laan, D.C., Kim, C.H., Pamidi, S.V., Weiss, J.D., “A turnkey gaseous helium-cooled superconducting CORC®dc power cable with integrated current leads,” Superconductor Science and Technology, 2022, 35(6), 065002

[9] van der Laan, D. C., Weiss, J. D., Kim, C. H., Graber, L., and Pamidi, S., “Development of CORC® cables for helium gas cooled power transmission and fault current limiting applications,” Superconductor Science and Technology, 31 (2018) 085011.

[10] NASA University Leadership Initiative

[11] NASA selects FAMU-FSU College of Engineering to help develop sustainable aviation system – Integrated Zero Emission Aviation

Acknowledgment

NASA and the Office of Naval Research support the work.

Keywords: Superconducting technologies, electric transportation, electric ship, electric aircraft, liquid hydrogen, cryogenic thermal management

Abstract Body

We describe the progress and status of utilizing two high-temperature superconductors, Bi-2212 round wires and REBCO coated conductors, for accelerator magnet applications in USA, with a focus on the work performed at LBNL and our partners. The talk covers the efforts to improve the consistency of industrial Bi-2212 wire production to achieve high wire engineering current density of > 1100 A/mm2 at 4.2 K and 5 T consistently, to understand the science and technology of Bi-2212 Rutherford cables, results of a campaign to understand and remove ceramic leakage in Rutherford cables, and a new quench detection algorithm and the hardware developed that are effective in enabling early quench detection. For REBCO magnets, we will cover the progress with fabricating canted cosine theta magnets using round CORC® conductors and our efforts in modeling shielding current induced field and mechanical effects and design strategies in controlling them.

Acknowledgment

This work is supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics.

Keywords: HTS magnets and materials, REBCO, Bi-2212

Abstract Body

The 14-T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) superconducting magnet utilizes both Nb₃Sn and NbTi wires to generate the required magnetic field. Due to the brittleness of heat-treated Nb₃Sn wires, the Nb₃Sn coil is usually reacted after winding. There are two main challenges in the manufacture of Nb₃Sn coils. Firstly, the Nb₃Sn coil usually uses the glass fiber as insulation. The heat treatment process will decrease the insulation strength of the glass fiber, which may lead to insulation breakdown of the Nb₃Sn coil during quench. Secondly, the dimensions and positions of the Nb₃Sn coil could also change during heat treatment, which would affect the stress and strain distributions in the magnet and have a negative effect on the magnetic field homogeneity.

This paper presents the manufacture process and cryogenic test of reinforced bronze-processed Nb₃Sn coils for a 14-T animal MRI magnet. The magnet has a warm bore of 175 mm and consists of two Nb₃Sn solenoid coils and six NbTi solenoid coils. The Nb₃Sn wires are manufactured by the bronze process and reinforced with CuNi/NbTi. Carbon-free fiberglass cloth is wrapped between the layers when winding the Nb₃Sn coils to enhance interlayer insulation. After winding, the Nb₃Sn coils are subjected to heat treatment at 670℃ in an argon environment. To control the changes in Nb₃Sn coil dimensions and positions after heat treatment, a heat treatment tooling for Nb₃Sn solenoid coils is designed and utilized, which takes into account the rate of expansion of Nb₃Sn wires during heat treatment. After heat treatment, the Nb₃Sn coils undergo vacuum pressure impregnation to enhance the mechanical and insulation strength. The Nb₃Sn-Nb₃Sn/Nb₃Sn-NbTi superconducting joints are fabricated and an external aluminum cylinder reinforcement is installed. The stainless steel bobbin is removed to further increase the ground insulation of the Nb₃Sn coils. In the cryogenic test, the current of Nb₃Sn coils reaches 380 A, corresponding to a central magnetic field of 11 T.

References

This work was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China (Grant No.XDB25000000).

Keywords: Bronze-processed Nb3Sn, Heat treatment, Superconducting magnets, Magnetic resonance imaging