Recent Development of High Temperature Superconducting (HTS) Cable Application to Ship Deperming Work

Abstract

We study a system of high electric current cable laid on the seabed for purpose of naval ship magnetic deperming. Magnetic field to deperm the ship is imposed vertically on to the ship. Moderate magnetic field over 2400 A/m is to be imposed on the volume equivalent of several thousand tons of ship, with alternately changing direction and gradually decreasing intensity. Cable with conventional conductor needs large power source because of the requirements coming from the cable's resistivity and high decay of magnetic field depending on distance from source. High Temperature Superconducting cable is suitable for this application. We set a requirement of maximum current of the cable as 200 kA and the length as 1200 m set on seabed of 12 m depth. Our recent design of the cable composed of Rare-earth-Barium-Copper-Oxide tape conductor stack, bundled and cooled by helium gas to 50 K. As a next step, cooling to 20 K with the same base concept of cable is shown to mitigate high expense of the tape conductor.