• KEPCO Journal on Electric Power and Energy
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.299-305
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• 2016

The High Temperature Superconducting power cables (HTS power cables) become increasingly longer to commercialize the HTS power cable system. Accordingly, demands on refrigerators of large cooling capacity per a unit system have been increased. In Korea, it is currently imported from abroad with the high price due to insufficient domestic technologies. In order to commercialize the HTS power cables, it is necessary to develop the refrigerators with large cooling capacity. The Brayton refrigerators are composed of recuperative heat exchangers, compressors and cryogenic turbo expanders. The most directly considering the efficiency of the Brayton refrigerator, it depends on performance of the cryogenic turbo expander. Rotating at high speed in cryogenic temperature, the cryogenic turbo expanders lower temperature by expanding high pressure of a helium or neon gas. In this paper, the reverse Brayton cycle is designed and the cryogenic turbo expander is designed in accordance with the thermodynamic cycle.

• Proceedings of the SAREK Conference
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.88-88
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• 2006

• Proceedings of the SAREK Conference
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.24-24
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• 2007

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.129-135
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• 2016

There have been many types of development and commercialization efforts for superconducting power applications with the continuous development of High Temperature Superconducting (HTS) conductors. In particular, HTS power cables are going to be commercialized in real power grids. A cryogenic refrigeration system should be used to keep it below 77 K, and its required cooling capacity continuously increases as the unit length of the HTS power cable increases. Among the many kinds of cryogenic refrigerator, a reverse Brayton refrigerator that uses turbo expanders is a promising refrigerator due to its efficiency and reliability. Among the various components in refrigerators, the cryogenic turbo-expander is the most important part for increasing efficiency and assuring reliability. The design of a 300 W class turbo-expander is described in this paper prior to the development of a 10 kW class turbo expander, which is the required capability for the commercialization of a HTS power cable. The impeller shape and rotation speed are determined based on the cycle analysis. The Eigen frequency and harmonic analysis are conducted with gas bearings at cryogenic temperatures to determine the operational stability.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.141-148
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• 2015

The cryogenic cooling system should maintain the HTS power cable below 77 K. As the length of HTS power cables has increased, there have been many efforts to develop large capacity cryocoolers. Brayton, Joule-Thomson, and Claude refrigerators were considered for the large capacity cryocooler. Among the various cryocoolers, the Brayton refrigerator is the most competitive in terms of the HTS power cable. At present, it is thought that a 10-kW class refrigerator will be able to be used as a unit cooling system for the commercialization of HTS power cables in the near future. The Brayton refrigerator is composed of recuperative heat exchangers, a compressor, and a cryogenic turbo expander. Among the various components, the cryogenic turbo expander is the part that decreases the temperature, and it is the most significant component that is closely related with overall system efficiency. It rotates at high speed using high-pressure helium or neon gas at cryogenic temperatures. This paper describes the design of a 300-W class Brayton refrigeration cycle and the cryogenic turbo expander as a downscale model for the practical 10-kW class cycle. Flow and structural analyses are performed on the rotating impeller and nozzle to verify the efficiency and the design performance.

• Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.58-65
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• 2003

The high temperature superconductivity(HTS) cable must be cooled below the nitrogen liquefaction temperature to applicate the cable in power generation and transmi-ssion system under the superconducting state. To obtain superconducting state. a reliable cryocooler system is required. Structural and thermal design have been performed to design cryocooler system operated with reverse Brayton cycle using gas neon as refrigerant. This cryocooler system consists of compressor. recuperator. coldbox. control valves and has 1 kW cooling capacity. Heat loss calculation was conducted for the given cryocooler system by considering the conduction and radiation through the multi-layer insulation(MLI) and high vacuum. The results can be summarized as: conduction heat loss is 7 W in valves and access port and radiation heat loss is 18 W through the surface of cryocooler. The full design specifications were discussed and the results were applied to construct in house HTS cable cooling system.

• Proceedings of the Korea Institute of Applied Superconductivity and Cryogenics Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.176-180
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• 2003

To obtain superconducting state, a reliable cryocooler system is required. Structural and thermal design have been performed to design cryocooler system operated with reverse Brayton cycle using gas neon as refrigerant. This cryocooler system consists of compressor recuperator, coldbox, control valves and has 1 ㎾ cooling capacity. Heat loss calculation was conducted for the given cryocooler system by considering the conduction and radiation through the multi-layer insulation (MLI) and high vacuum. The results can be summarized as; conduction heat loss is 7 W in valves and access port and radiation heat loss is 18 W through the surface of cryocooler. The full design specifications were discussed.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.429-435
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• 2020

This paper describes the experimental study of reverse-Brayton refrigeration system for application to high temperature superconductivity electric devices and LNG re-liquefaction. The reverse-Brayton refrigeration cycle is designed with operating pressure of 0.5 and 1.0 MPa, cooling capacity of 2 kW at 77 K, and neon as a working fluid. The refrigeration system is developed with multi scroll compressor, turbo expander and plate heat exchanger. From experiments, the performance characteristics of used components is measured and discussed for 77-120 K of operating temperature. The developed refrigeration system shows the cooling capacity of 1.23 kW at 77 K and 1.64 kW at 110 K.