Volume Element Method for Thermal Analysis of Superconducting DC Transmission Cable

The ever increasing need for cost-efficient, high-density power transmission brought to the fore applied superconductivity as an alternative worth investigating. Especially, high-temperature superconducting (HTS) dc cables emerge as a promising solution for bulk power transmission and their use in the near future is expected to be increased. HTS cables have the special characteristic of varying performance under different critical conditions, especially under different operating temperatures. Therefore, detailed thermal analysis of HTS cables representing thermodynamics and heat transfer for varying length and time is of significant importance. The analytical mathematical formulation presented in this paper solves heat transfer equations for a two-dimensional axisymmetric cable model and identifies temperature distribution over length and time. The analysis is conducted on a bipolar cable suggested by the Electric Power Research Institute for long-distance HTS dc transmission, while both steady-state and transient scenarios are examined.