PhD student Joshua Feldman with Advisor K. Haran

A cryogenic cooling system for a fully superconducting machine is being studied as part of the NASA-funded Center for High-Efficiency Electric Technologies for Aircraft (CHEETA). A topology for this cooling system has been designed and modeled in computer-aided design (CAD) software. It is shown in Figure 3. This model includes a heat exchanger that uses flow-boiling of liquid hydrogen to remove 3–4 kW of heat from the motor’s armature coils. Validation of this model through a 1-D thermal equivalent circuit was performed, and it was found that the design could cool the armature coils to a minimum temperature of 23.6 K with a maximum temperature of 31.2 K, ignoring the end windings, and a maximum temperature of 49.0 K with the effect of the end windings included.

cooling system CAD model for fully superconducting machine

Figure 3. CAD model of a cooling system for a fully superconducting machine