MS student Joshua Feldman with Advisor K. Haran

A cryogenic cooling system for a fully superconducting machine is being researched as part of the NASA-funded Center for High-Efficiency Electric Technologies for Aircraft. Topologies for this system have been ideated and compared and previous attempts at creating similar systems have been identified. The system is presently being modeled with computer-aided design tools, and thermal simulations with ANSYS Icepak software are being set up. A basic model of the cooling design is shown in Figure 2, where tubes will carry liquid hydrogen coolant. This topic was presented at the 3rd International Workshop of Cooling Systems for High Temperature Superconductor Applications. A design and analysis will be presented at the 2020 Applied Superconductivity Conference in July. Fellowship applications to NSF and NASA have been submitted to help support this research.

full and component views of cooling system for a fully SC machine

Figure 2. Liquid-Hydrogen based cooling system for superconducting machine coils