Pressure Drop Characteristics of Concentric Spiral Corrugation Cryostats for a HTS Power Cable Considering Core Surface Roughness

Abstract Recently, interest in renewable energy systems such as solar, hydrogen and wind power has increased as an alternative to fossil fuels. Renewable energy sources such as large wind and solar farms require long-distance power transmission because they are located inland or offshore, far from the city where power is required. High Temperature Superconducting (HTS) power cables have more than 5 times the transmission capacity and less than one-tenth the transmission loss compared to the existing cables of the same size, enabling large-capacity transmission at low voltage. In addition, it has perfect magnetic shielding performance, so it can fundamentally solve the electromagnetic wave environmental problem, and does not use any environmental pollutants in the existing high-voltage power cables. For commercialization of HTS power cables, unmanned operation and long-distance cooling technology of several kilometers is essential, and pressure drop characteristic is important. The cryostat's spiral corrugation tube is easier to bend, but unlike the round tube, the pressure drop cannot be calculated using the Moody chart. In addition, it is more difficult to predict the pressure drop characteristics due to the irregular surface roughness of the binder wound around the cable core. In this paper, a suitable CFD model of a spiral corrugation tube with a core was designed by referring to the water experiments from previous studies. In the four cases geometry, when the surface roughness of the core was 10mm, most errors were 15% and the maximum errors were 23%. These results will be used as a reference for the design of long-distance HTS power cables.