Serial Arc Risk Analysis in HTS Tapes for Electric Aircraft

High Temperature Superconducting (HTS) cables developed for superconducting powertrains for electric aircrafts have to demonstrate their robustness, especially towards electric arcs. We propose here a methodology to evaluate HTS cable vulnerability to serial arcs following a quench. First, the arc voltage threshold of an HTS tape is measured under cryogenic temperatures. Then, a model is proposed to predict the peak of the transient voltage developed at the breaking point in case one of the HTS tapes in the cable is broken. This model depends on self and mutual inductances and on current variationdI/dt. A good correlation is obtained between the model and experiments using a simplified setup at room temperature. The comparison between the predicted transient voltage induced in representative HTS cables when one tape is broken with the arc voltage threshold will allow to assess the arcing risk in specific topologies of HTS cable.