Quench Behaviors of High-Temperature Superconductor Stacked-Tape Cable

High-temperature superconductor (HTS) cables have a broad prospect in power transmission applications due to their low loss and high current capacity. The stacked-tape cable is a type of HTS cables wound with parallel-stacked tapes, which shows enhanced thermal stability due to electrical and thermal contacts between tapes. During local quench, the transport current is redistributed among stacked tapes through terminal joint resistances and tape-to-tape electrical contacts. It leads to complicated quench behaviors, which have not been studied so far. This study investigates the quench behaviors of stacked-tape cables. An electro-thermal coupled model is developed, integrating an equivalent circuit model of HTS stacked-tape cables with a finite-element heat transfer module. The current redistribution and thermal behaviors in stacked-tape cables during local quenches are analyzed. The influences of terminal joint resistances and contact resistivities on quench behaviors and thermal stability of stacked-tape cables are studied based on the minimum quench energy (MQE). Results of this provide valuable insights into the stable operation of HTS cables in power transmission applications.