Superconducting Motors and Generators

Jean Lévêque (1) , Kévin Berger (1) , Bruno Douine (1)

1 GREEN - Groupe de Recherche en Energie Electrique de Nancy

The story of superconducting machines began in the 1960s. The first machine made in 1967 was a fully superconducting alternator using NbTi wires. Then, High Temperature Superconductors (HTS) were discovered and this was the starting point of many new studies on superconducting machines. This chapter reviews various topologies of superconducting motors and generators using HTS published in the literature. It begins with a brief presentation of the operating principle of electric motors. Then follows a striking description of the various realizations listed by machine typology. Some of these machines are totally innovative compared to conventional ones and their operating principle is strictly only related to the presence of superconducting materials.

Mots clés: bulk superconducting materials; superconducting motors; superconducting wires and coils

Domaines: Supraconductivité [cond-mat.supr-con]; Energie électrique; Electromagnétisme; Science des matériaux [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]

Jean Lévêque, Kévin Berger, Bruno Douine. Superconducting Motors and Generators. Muralidhar Miryala and M. R. Koblischka (Superconducting Materials Laboratory, Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Shibaura Institute of Technology (SIT), Toyosu, Koto-ku, Tokyo, Japan). High-Temperature Superconductors: Occurrence, Synthesis and Applications, Nova Science Publishers, Chapter 12, pp. 263-290, 2018, Materials Science and Technologies, 978-1-53613-342-4. ⟨hal-01694688⟩