Homopolar superconducting AC machines, with HTS dynamo driven field coils, for aerospace applications

There is worldwide interest in high-speed motors and generators with characteristics of compactness, light weight and high efficiency for aerospace applications. Several options are under consideration. However, machines employing high temperature superconductors (HTS) look promising for enabling machines with the desired characteristics. Machines employing excitation field windings on the rotor are constrained by the stress limit of rotor teeth and mechanisms for holding the winding at very high speed. Homopolar AC synchronous machines characteristically employ both the DC field excitation winding and AC armature windings in the stator. The rotor is merely a magnetic iron forging with salient pole lumps, which could be rotated at very high speeds up to the stress limit of the rotor materials. Rotational speeds of 50,000 RPM and higher are achievable. The high rotational speed enables more compact lightweight machines.

This paper describes a 2 MW 25,000 RPM concept designs for machines employing HTS field excitation windings. The AC armature winding is made of actively cooled copper Litz conductor. The field winding consists of a small turn-count HTS coil that could be ramped up or down with a contactless HTS dynamo. This eliminates current leads spanning room-temperature and cryogenic regions and are major source for thermal conduction into the cryogenic region and thereby increase thermal load to be removed with refrigerators. For early adaption of this technology for the aerospace applications, this 2 MW machine weighing 380 kg with an efficiency > 99% represents an attractive option.