Sehwan In

Experimental Study on Vaporization of Subcooled Liquid Nitrogen by Instantaneous Heat Generation in LN2 Chamber for HTS-FCL

It is one of important design issues in the high-temperature superconducting fault current limiter (HTS-FCL) to estimate how much liquid nitrogen vaporizes during its quench process. This paper describes the small scale experiment about the vaporization of subcooled liquid nitrogen by instantaneous heat generation corresponding to the quench in HTS-FCL. In the experiment, the heat is given liquid nitrogen by Joule heating of the stainless steel strip for the short time of about 100 ms. The time variations of temperature and pressure in the liquid nitrogen test chamber are measured for different subcooling conditions of liquid nitrogen and various heat flux conditions. In addition, the amount of vaporization of liquid nitrogen is calculated from experimental results according to the subcooling of liquid nitrogen. The experimental results show that the vaporization of liquid nitrogen strongly depends on heat flux and subcooling conditions. The amount of vaporization linearly decreases with the increase in the subcooling of liquid nitrogen. The calculation results about the amount of vaporization suggest that the subcooling of more than 20 K is necessary to suppress bubble generation for the heat flux condition of 46 W/cm2 or more.

Rotating Cryocooler for Superconducting Motor

A single‐stage coaxial pulse tube refrigerator has been designed for HTS (High Temperature Superconductor) motor application. This paper discusses a practical realization of an advanced cooling method for superconducting rotor, on‐board cryocooler. When a cryocooler is considered to be mounted on the superconducting rotor, the following two factors must be satisfied for practical application. First, the on‐board cryocooler should not disturb the high‐speed revolution of the rotor. Second, at the same time, the high‐speed revolution of the rotor should not deteriorate the cooling performance of the cryocooler. These mutual technical demands restrict the type of cryocooler suitable for high‐speed rotating environment. We select a Stirling‐type coaxial pulse tube cryocooler and incorporate it on the 1800‐rpm superconducting motor mock‐up. The pulse tube cryocooler is designed with an adiabatic model and a various loss mechanism analysis. The no‐load temperature is approximately 100 K with less than 150 W ele...

Design and test of the Stirling-type pulse tube cryocooler

Stirling type pulse tube cryocoolers are very attractive for cooling of diverse application because it has it has several inherent advantages such as no moving part in the cold end, low manufacturing cost and long operation life. To develop the Stirling-type pulse tube cryocooler, we need to design a linear compressor to drive the pulse tube cryocooler. A moving magnet type linear motor of dual piston configuration is designed and fabricated, and this compressor could be operated with the electric power of 100 W and the frequency up to 60 Hz. A single stage coaxial type pulse tube cold finger aiming at over 1.5 W at 80K is built and tested with the linear compressor. Experimental investigations have been conducted to evaluate their performance characteristics with respect to several parameters such as the phase shifter, the charging pressure and the operating frequency of the linear compressor.

A Study on Generating efficiency of the Double Acting Stirling Engine/Generator

>> This paper describes generating efficiency characteristics of the double acting Stirling engine/generator for domestic small-scale CHP (Combined Heat and Power) system. In small distributed generation applications, Stirling engine has competition from fuel cell, microturbine and etc. In order to be economical in the applications, a long life with minimum maintenance is generally required. Free piston Stirling engine (FPSE) has no crank and rotating parts to generate lateral forces and require lubrication. Double acting Stirling engine/generator has one displacer and two power piston which are supported by flexure springs. Two power pistons oscillate with symmetric displacement and are connected with moving magnet type linear generators for power generation from PV work. In experiments, 1 kW class double acting free piston Stirling engine/generator is fabricated and tested. Heat is supplied to hot end of engine by the combustion of natural gas and converted to electric power by linear generators which are assembled with power pistons. The electric parameters such as voltage, current and phase are measured with for variable flow rate of fuel gas. Especially, generating efficiency of FPSE is measured with three different measurement methods. Generating efficiency of the double acting Stirling engine/alternator is about 24%.

A Study on Stirling Cryocooler for Precooling Hydrogen Liquefier

>> Korea Institute of Machinery & Materials (KIMM) has developed a high efficient Stirling cryocooler with moving magnet linear compressor for precooling hydrogen liquefier and cooling high temperature superconductor (HTS) devices, such as superconductor cable and superconductor fault current limiters. Hydrogen liquefier and HTS electric devices require cryocooler with cooling capacity of hundred watts to kilowatts at 77 K. The compressor in the Stirling cryocooler uses opposed moving magnet linear motors to drive opposed pistons. High efficient Stirling cryocooler is designed by SAGE-software, manufactured and tested systematically. A cooling capacity of 1 kW at 77 K with an electric input power of 9.6 kW has been analyzed. But prototype test results of the Stirling cryocooler have the cooling capacity of 0.65 kW at 76.8 K with an electric input power of 8.1 kW. And then, 21.5% Carnot COP (Coefficient of performance) of the prototype Stirling cryocooler is achieved. The comparison analysis between SAGE-model and experimental results has shown the direction for further design optimization of the Stirling cryocooler.

A Study on Design of the Linear Generator in the Double Acting Stirling Engine

Abstract >> This paper describes the continuing effort to analysis and design on dynamic and electrical behaviorof gamma-type free piston Stirling engine/generator with dual–opposed linear generator for domestic micro-CHP (Combined Heat and Power) system. The double acting Stirling engine/generator has one displacer and two power piston which are supported by flexure springs. Two power pistons oscillate with symmetric sinusoidal displacementand are connected with moving magnet type linear generators for power generation. To operate Stirling engine/ generator, combustion heat of natural gas is supplied to hot-end and heat is rejected from cold-end by coolingwater. The temperature difference across the displacer induces the oscillating motion, and it can be explained withmass-spring vibration system. The purpose of this paper is to describe the design process of linear generator for the double acting free-piston Stirling engine. Key words : Double acting free piston Stirling engine/alternator(양방향 자유 피스톤 스털링엔진 /발전기), Lineargenerator(선형발전기), Piston(피스톤), Displacer(변위기), Operating frequency(작동주파수)

Performance test of the cryogenic cooling system for the superconducting fault current limiter

A Superconducting Fault Current Limiter is an electric power device which limits the fault current immediately in a power grid. The SFCL must be cooled to below the critical temperature of high temperature superconductor modules. In general, they are submerged in sub-cooled liquid nitrogen for their stable thermal characteristics. To cool and maintain the target temperature and pressure of the sub-cooled liquid nitrogen, the cryogenic cooling system should be designed well with a cryocooler and coolant circulation devices. The pressure of the cryostat for the SFCL should be pressurized to suppress the generation of nitrogen bubbles in quench mode of the SFCL. In this study, we tested the performance of the cooling system for the prototype 154 kV SFCL, which consist of a Stirling cryocooler, a subcooling cryostat, a pressure builder and a main cryostat for the SFCL module, to verify the design of the cooling system and the electric performance of the SFCL. The normal operation condition of the main cryostat is 71 K and 500 kPa. This paper presents tests results of the overall cooling system.