An investigation on AC loss reduction for permanent-magnet superconducting electrical machine

High temperature superconducting (HTS) tapes could be introduced into large scale electrical machines in order to improve the power density. However, the alternating current (AC) loss of HTS tapes will cause the reduction of efficiency. On the basis of analytical and numerical model calculations, this paper presents an optimal design of the HTS armature winding aiming at lower AC loss. The main contribution of this work is that the relationship between the installation parameters and the AC loss of such HTS armature windings has been figured out based on the analysis of the shape feature of the HTS tape and the external magnetic field. When the tape is placed along a particular direction where the perpendicular component of external magnetic field has the lowest amplitude, the AC loss is the smallest. The modified installation location and angle are found based on the proposed generator. These results are verified using finite element method (FEM).