Transient thermal analysis of a tri-axial HTS cable on fault current condition

High-temperature superconducting (HTS) tri-axial cable, which consists of three concentric phases, was developed as a potential commercial solution for next generation distribution power network. In our previous research, we simulate the transient thermal behavior of the cable by solving the heat equation using one-dimension difference method. The result shows that it takes time to recover the cable temperature to the steady-state operation level due to a low thermal conductivity of the insulation layer after a fault. However for a long cable system, when middle phase in concentric structure is rated under an over current, accumulated heat from middle phase might continually warm up the liquid nitrogen (LN₂) flow by heat transfer even the over current has been stopped. In this research, we improve the numerically calculation which includes the consideration of flowing liquid nitrogen and the heat transfer in both radius and longitudinal directions. A long tri-axial cable system thermal stability is discussed based on the calculation results.