High current density aluminum stabilized conductor concepts for space applications
Abstract
The authors report on a high-current-density aluminum-stabilized conductor concept for large spaceborne energy storage inductors. High-purity-aluminum-stabilized NbTi composite conductors cooled by 1.8-K helium can provide a winding current density up to 15 kA/sq cm at fields up to 10 T. The conductors are edge-cooled with enough surface area to provide recovery following a normalizing disturbance. The conductors are designed so that current diffusion time in the high-purity aluminum is smaller than the thermal diffusion time in helium. Conductor design, stability, and current diffusion are considered. The numerical analysis of transient stability shows that aluminum-stabilized conductors with final resistivity ratio greater than 800 can be stable in a 1.8-K pressurized helium II bath up to 50 kA (J = 15 kA/sq cm) at fields up to 10 T. Single-layer toroids are preferred over multilayer ones because of their simplicity of construction, large current requirement, and better magnetoresistance.
- Publication:
-
IEEE Transactions on Magnetics
- Pub Date:
- March 1989
- DOI:
- 10.1109/20.92588
- Bibcode:
- 1989ITM....25.1532H
- Keywords:
-
- Aluminum Alloys;
- Current Density;
- Electric Conductors;
- Energy Storage;
- Inductors;
- Spacecraft Power Supplies;
- Copper Alloys;
- Heat Transfer;
- Magnetoresistivity;
- Niobium Alloys;
- Titanium Alloys;
- Electronics and Electrical Engineering