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Materials Today: Proceedings 5 (2018) 10408–10412 www.materialstoday.com/proceedings

ECT 2016

Advantages of water-cooled Peltier current leads for HTS devices

Yury Ivanova,*, Kengo Yamauchia, Vladimir Vyatkina, Hirofumi Watanabea,
Noriyuki Inouea, Noriko Chikumotoa, Satarou Yamaguchia
a
CASER, Chubu University, 1200 Matsumoto, Kasugai, Aichi 487-8501, Japan

Abstract

Efficiency of high-temperature superconducting (HTS) devices can be increased by reducing the heat leak into the cold zone
through current leads. There are many models of cryogenic current leads; however, the Wiedemann-Franz law severely restricts
the possibility of their optimization. According to our experience, the qualitative improvement of the characteristics of the current
lead can be achieved using Peltier element as a heat pump, which prevents the penetration of heat inside the HTS device. Test
samples of Peltier current leads (PCLs) were mounted on the experimental HTS DC power transmission lines constructed in
Japan. Currently we are studying the possibility of increasing the PCL efficiency using water-cooling of the hot side of the
current lead.

© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Selection and/or Peer-review under responsibility of the Conference Committee Members of 14th EUROPEAN CONFERENCE
ON THERMOELECTRICS.

Keywords: Direct current transmission; high temperature superconductors; Peltier current leads; water-cooled current leads

1. Introduction

One of the promising directions of development of modern power industry is the application of cables based on
high-temperature superconductors (HTS) for long-distance power transmission (PT). This approach, in addition to
the low energy loss offers several other advantages over conventional cable systems. These include the ability to
transfer high capacities at low voltage, low land use, high fire and environmental safety. The integration of HTS
cables into the existing PT systems have been launched after successful worldwide implementation of a large

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +81-568-51-9286; fax: +81-568-51-9413.

E-mail address: ivanov@isc.chubu.ac.jp

2214-7853 © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Selection and/or Peer-review under responsibility of the Conference Committee Members of 14th EUROPEAN CONFERENCE ON
THERMOELECTRICS.
 Yury Ivanov / Materials Today: Proceedings 5 (2018) 10408–10412 10409

number of pilot projects. However, the construction of long PT lines encounters difficulties due to the complexity of
maintaining the low temperature of the entire HTS cable. The quality of thermal insulation is of crucial importance
to overcome this problem. The heat leakage through current leads that need to interconnect "warm" external power
source and consumers by means of "cold" HTS cable placed in liquid nitrogen (LN2) are also important for short
HTS lines in addition to heat leakage through the thermal insulation and structural supports. A characteristic feature
of HTS DC PT lines is the use of high operating current and low voltage, which allows to significantly reduce the
cost of both rectifying and converting equipment, and high-voltage protection. High-current current leads, acting as
powerful thermal bridges, can significantly reduce the performance of HTS lines, as well as compact apparatuses
such superconducting magnets. The conventional solutions of the problem are the cooling and the geometry
optimization of the current lead. An excellent review of the cryogenic current leads was given in [1]. Unfortunately,
a strong correlation between thermal and electrical conductivities of the metal, known as the Wiedemann-Franz law,
leads to a sufficiently high value of the lowest achievable heat leakage. An alternative method introduced in [2, 3]
for the superconducting magnets is the utilization of current lead with built-in Peltier element. Conducting transport
current Peltier element operates in heat pump mode and prevents the penetration of heat inside the cryogenic device.
The first mathematical model [4] has been refined later to take into account temperature dependence of
thermoelectric properties [5], and full-scale experiment was described in [6]. Optimization of PCL design is
discussed, for example, in [7]. Several modifications of the Peltier current leads (PCLs) have been proposed over the
last years. There are known multistage, gas- and water-cooled, multi-leg, and combined models [6, 8-15]. PCL to be
used with AC superconducting devices has been considered as well [6, 16, 17]. PCLs of different types developed in
Chubu University were mounted on HTS DC PT lines [18, 19]. The up-to-date PCLs operate on 500- and 1000-
meter lines in Hokkaido (Japan) [20, 21]. We are currently working on the improvement of end-user performance of
PCL in order to create commercial product. In particular, we study the advantages of forced water-cooling for
removing the heat released in the material of the current lead at high current, and the behavior of PCL in case of
current overload.

2. Experimental set up
Schematic diagram of the PCL is shown in Fig. 1. The Peltier element (based on bismuth telluride) connected in
series in the electrical circuit of the current lead. When passing a transport current it operates as a heat pump,
pumping heat from the cold zone to the environment that is against the flow of heat caused by temperature gradient
in the current lead. In the whole, this circuit design provides noticeable gain despite Joule heating of the Peltier
element. Several small legs instead of one are used in parallel to improve the mechanical behavior of the PCL
modern models.

Fig. 1. Sketch of the Peltier current lead (PCL). Fig. 2. Modern models of PCLs.
10410 Yury Ivanov / Materials Today: Proceedings 5 (2018) 10408–10412

Three models of the PCL designed in Chubu University are presented in Fig. 2. One piece is shown with water-
jacket installed. The layout of the test-bench is explained in Fig. 3. A current flows into the cryostat through n-type
PCL and return back through p-type one. The amount of heat incoming into the cold zone through PCLs is measured
by the amount of the evaporated nitrogen gas. In order to minimize heat leak from other sources, lower LN2 tank
used for the measurements is surrounded by copper heat screen being in heat contact with second (upper) LN2 tank.
Therefore, the heat flow into the lower tank is only the heat flow through the current leads and resistive losses in
PCLs.

Fig. 3. Layout of the test-bench. Fig. 4. Couple of PCLs with water-cooled jacket mounted on the test-
bench.

The algorithm discussed in [4] was used to optimize the geometric parameters of PCLs. Approval testing were
carried out in Chubu University using the above experimental facility. The specification of tested PCLs and the
measurement results are listed in [13]. The efficiency of PCL can be improved using forced water-cooling of the hot
side of the device. Water jackets were fabricated for testing this technology (see Fig. 2, 4). The measurements were
carried out with 14-legs PCLs [13].

3. Results and discussion

The representative behavior of the evaporation rate of LN2 versus transport current is illustrated in Fig. 5. The
waiting time until a steady state was 2-3 hours when the current varied by 25 A step. Plot of temperatures of hot (TH)
and cold (TL) sides of PCLs versus transport current in steady state (see Fig. 6) shows that the TH increase with the
increase in the current is significantly limited. However, it is clear that the heat exchange between the cooling water
and the external electrode needs to be improved. Plots of total heat leak and specific heat leak as functions of
transport current in Fig. 7 allow to determine the main operational characteristics of the current leads. One can see
the flat-bottomed minimum at about 120 A that corresponds to the optimal mode of operation of PCL. Optimal
specific heat leak is about 33 W/kA. This value is significantly lower than 50 W/kA that is typical for conventional
copper current leads. The working range of the PCL is quite wide and is approximately 100-140 A.
An important characteristic of PCL is allowable overload current. It is known that the conventional cryogenic
current leads burn out if transport current exceeds the optimal value by a few tens of percent [22]. In order to
evaluate the durability during current overload, the couple of PCLs was supplied with rectangular current pulses.
The pulse duration was from 0.2 to 9 s, and the amplitude was from 0 to 330 A. Value of the voltage drop at the
Peltier element allowed us to determine the increase of the average electric resistance due to the temperature rise.
Taking into account the actual dependence of resistance on temperature provided by the manufacturer of the PCLs,
 Yury Ivanov / Materials Today: Proceedings 5 (2018) 10408–10412 10411

we can determine the average temperature rise as function of pulse duration and current. Relative resistivity increase
versus squared current, and calculated temperature rise for p-type Peltier elements are presented in Fig. 8. The initial
average temperature of the element was about -20 ºC. The resulting family of smooth curves makes it easy to
evaluate the overheating of the Peltier element during a short-term current overload.

Fig. 5. Time dependence of transport current and standard nitrogen Fig. 6. Temperatures of hot (TH) and cold (TL) parts of PCLs versus
gas flow rate. Current was changed stepwise from 150 A to 75 A. transport current.

Fig. 7. Total heat leak and specific heat leak as functions of transport Fig. 8. Relative resistivity increase versus squared current, and
current. calculated temperature rise for p-type Peltier elements.

4. Conclusion

In the present study, the thermoelectric performance of cryogenic current leads equipped with Peltier elements
was investigated. In contrast with our previous works, water jacket provided cooling of external electrode in order to
increase the efficiency of the current lead. It was shown that the heat leakage into the cryogenic zone can be reduced
by about a third relative to the leakage through optimized copper current leads. Furthermore, behavior of the PCLs
in an overcurrent condition was investigated for the first time. The obtained results allow us to estimate easily the
overheating of the Peltier elements and select the operating regime of the fault current limiter. The increase in the
average temperature of the Peltier element is meant to be a criterion to limit the current. For example, p-type
element warms up by 50 ºC in 1.27 s, and n-type in 2.46 s at the current of 300 A. If pulse duration is 5 s, p- and n-
type elements warm up by 50 ºC by currents of 200 and 247 A, correspondingly. Therefore, the limiting element is
p-type one, which is associated with a significant difference in conductivity of p- and n- type Peltier materials. It
seems necessary to determine the heat leakage through p- and n-PCLs separately.
10412 Yury Ivanov / Materials Today: Proceedings 5 (2018) 10408–10412

The proposed method of measurement is valid for the testing of all types of PCLs for HTS devices. It will be
used in the future research to study the behavior of PCLs under different working conditions.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). We also
acknowledge to Professor A. Iiyoshi, the President of Chubu University for his continuous encouragement.

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