Sumitomo and Cobham Technical Services Join for Electrical Machine Design

By DE Editors

The superconducting wire producer Sumitomo Electric, and Cobham Technical Services, have joined forces to offer a solution for the design of electrical machines and power equipment.

Cobham's QUENCH electromagnetic software tool for modeling the quenching process in superconducting materials now comes with a library containing manufacturer-supplied material characterization data for Sumitomo's DI-BSSCO bismuth-based superconducting wire. The combination will help simplify the design and prototyping stages of applying high temperature superconductors (HTS). Among the application sectors currently exploring HTS-based solutions are electricity transmission and distribution infrastructure, hydroelectric and wind turbine generators, electric motor propulsion systems for ships, and high performance magnets.

"Design activity using HTS superconductors is growing very rapidly—driven by the maturing of HTS technology and the critical need to improve energy efficiency. This cooperation agreement provides an important means of simplifying and speeding design projects," says John Simkin of Cobham Technical Services. "It eliminates a major step in the design process of specifying the non-linear properties of the wire materials—which might involve testing under highly controlled operating conditions—allowing a designer to create an accurate model of an electrical component such as a coil simply by specifying the number of turns."

The QUENCH tool for modeling the superconducting “quenching” process—when a wire turns from a superconducting to resistive state—is available as part of Cobham's Opera CAE software suite for low frequency electromagnetic simulation.

For more information, visit: Cobham Technical Services.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company's website.