Abnormality Monitoring for Three-Phase HTS Cable via Time-Frequency Domain Reflectometry

With the advent of commercialization in high temperature superconducting (HTS) cable systems, maintenance techniques for the HTS cable systems are required. In the HTS cable systems, which must maintain the superconducting state during the operation, real-time monitoring is essential. Therefore, in this paper, a monitoring technique for three-phase HTS cables is proposed. The proposed technique, which is based on time-frequency domain reflectometry, has an efficient instrument configuration compared to conventional techniques. Also, by extracting a feature in the time-frequency domain of the monitoring signals, abnormal phase in a three-phase HTS cable can be identified. The proposed technique is demonstrated by experimental data using a real-world three-phase HTS cable. In order to simulate a local quench in the operation of three-phase HTS cable systems, heating elements are utilized in the experimental setup. It is expected that the proposed technique will improve reliability in operating the three-phase HTS cable systems.