Manufacturing of a 1-MVA-Class Superconducting Fault Current Limiting Transformer With Recovery-Under-Load Capabilities

Superconducting current-limiting transformers offer an effective current limitation and recovery-under-load characteristics; they are more compact and have a lightweight design and a reduced short-circuit impedance. Several designs for superconducting current-limiting transformers have been developed and proposed by researchers over the last two decades. However, less research work was devoted to effective current limitation of superconducting transformers in combination with recovery under full or under partial load. In this paper, we present the process of manufacturing a superconducting transformer demonstrator with current limitation and recovery-under-load capabilities. The demonstrator consists of a laminated iron core and a normal conducting 20-kV primary winding, both operated at the room temperature. 2G REBCO tapes are used for the secondary winding, which is operated at 1-kV nominal voltage. In order to keep the secondary winding at cryogenic operation conditions at 77 K, a vacuum insulated fiber reinforced plastics cryostat was designed and manufactured.