Field cooling magnetization and losses of an improved
architecture of trapped-field superconducting rotor for
aircraft applications

Climente Alarcon, Vicente; Smara, Anis; Patel, Anup; Glowacki, Bartek; Baskys, Algirdas; Reis, Thomas

Field cooling magnetization and losses of an improved architecture of trapped-field superconducting rotor for aircraft applications

Authors

Climente Alarcon, Vicente

Publisher

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
https://doi.org/10.2514/mpef19

Description

A hybrid electric configuration for aircraft propulsion can yield several advantages, reducing fuel consumption and take-off distance, improving control and decreasing emissions. For such a benign scenario to occur, advances destined to increase the power-to-weight ratio of actual electric motors must be developed. Superconducting technology offers the prospect of achieving such performance, but at the cost of increasing design and constructive complexity. In that sense, stacks consisting of piling up layers of high temperature superconductor have proven to trap high value current vortexes and thus can provide a source of magnetic flux density for torque production, without the need of current leads or other equipment in the rotor. However, these macroscopic currents must be induced prior to operation and then maintained undisturbed by any variation of the magnetic flux density in the airgap, which cause heating and demagnetization. This work presents the result of novel numerical computations on a new rotor architecture developed within the ASuMED project with the aim of facilitating the magnetization of the stacks from a superconducting stator and prevent their demagnetization during torque production. The performance of the machine is assessed, and the expected survivability of the stacks compared with laboratory measurements.
EPSRC grant EP/P000738/1