Study of structure of Co-axial multi-layered HTS power cable based on low AC loss using efficient 3-D FEM analysis

Controlling the current distribution in each layer of a co-axial multi-layered high-T_c superconducting (HTS) cable uniformly is important in order to realize a compact and large capacity HTS power cable. The phenomenon of current imbalance should be exactly investigated by the analysis, because the current imbalance causes an increase of AC loss. In this paper, 3-D finite element analysis taking account of the nonlinear E-J characteristic is carried out in order to study the AC loss of a co-axial multi-layered HTS power cable with shield layers. The analysis region is considerably reduced by modeling spirally wound superconducting tapes as conductors having an anisotropic conductivity and using the periodic boundary condition. By using this model, AC transport characteristics of the co-axial three-layers cable (composed of two conductor layers and one shield layer) are studied, and the AC loss is investigated. The structure with low AC loss is also discussed.