The current unbalance in stacked REBCO tapes -- simulations based on a circuit grid model

TL;DR

This study uses circuit grid simulations to analyze current unbalance in stacked REBCO tapes, highlighting the importance of contact resistivity and tape properties for optimal high-current cable performance.

Contribution

It introduces a circuit model to evaluate current unbalance in REBCO tapes, emphasizing the role of contact resistivity and inter-tape transfer in cable design.

Findings

Proper contact resistivity prevents current unbalance.

Inter-tape current transfer can worsen local high current issues.

Low contact resistivity is essential for fast-charging applications.

Abstract

Unlike low temperature superconducting cables, there is so far no perfect solution for REBCO coated conductors to form a fully transposed high current cable. Every REBCO cable concept must import a stack of tapes to achieve an operating current as high as tens of kiloamperes. The stacked REBCO tapes, no matter whether they are twisted or not, however, have a nature of non-transposing and therefore could result in current unbalance. In this manuscript, the current unbalance and the related electrical characteristics of a cable made of 40 stacked REBCO tapes are studied with an electrical circuit simulation. The differences in splice resistances and tape inductances that are both related to the non-transposed structure of a REBCO stack are considered. Results show that for a 40 cm long termination, a proper method to keep the contact resistivity between each tape and the copper termination around 1e-8 ohmm is crucial to totally avoid current unbalance lowering the cable performance. Surprisingly, the inter-tape current transfer is found to be able to further exacerbate local high current though it does make the overall distribution more balanced. The inductance difference induced current unbalance is only important if local defects exist at long REBCO tapes, which on the other hand can be cured by good inter-tape current transfer. For a fast-charging rate of 1 kA/s, the inter-tape contact resistivity should also be low to a level of 1e-8 ohmm to ensure a short current transfer length of around 1 m.