Investigation of Transport AC Loss Characteristics in a Double-Layer Tenon–Mortise Modularized Conductor (TMMC)

The accurate evaluation of the ac loss is considered to be of great importance for the design and optimization of high-temperature superconducting (HTS) conductors. Along these lines, a new type of HTS conductor named tenon–mortise modularized conductor (TMMC), composed of a multilayer concentric round subconductor, was developed. Notably, the tenon–mortise connection structure of the TMMC requires a large amount of copper formers, significantly modifying its ac loss characteristics. Initially, a 2-D model for the TMMC was established to analyze the ac loss evaluation under sinusoidal current. The simulations demonstrated that the hysteresis loss in the tapes of the copper-former TMMC was the predominant component of ac loss at lower transport current frequencies. However, as the current frequency increased, the current and losses in the copper formers significantly rose. Subsequently, the ac loss of the TMMC with copper formers under low-frequency triangular wave current was evaluated through experimental and simulation methods. The results indicated that under varying current amplitudes and frequencies, the experimental and simulation results of ac loss exhibit a consistent trend, with an average numerical error of approximately 32.2%. Collectively, our work provides valuable insights for the optimization of TMMC designs and offers guidance for future research and applications in high-field magnet and power system technologies.