The recent investigation and engineering application of YBCO bulk materials

The application of bulk superconducting materials to electrical power systems is very attractive because bulk high temperature superconductors offer excellent electromagnetic properties. In recent years there has been significant progresses in the research and fabrication of superconducting bulk materials. Numerous efforts have been made worldwide to make bulk YBCO as a replacement of the conventional magnets to produce larger magnetic field and hence to improve the device performance in electrical power applications. This paper gives a comprehensive review of different applications of bulk HTS materials, concentrating in three areas including superconducting bearing, superconducting motors and high field magnets. The advantages of applying superconducting material into each application are analysed. The status of current research in each section is summarized and examples are given to demonstrate how YBCO bulk materials can benefit the design of electrical devices. Several numerical models which calculate the electromagnetic properties of bulk superconductors are introduced and finally the article concludes with a review on the studies of the demagnetisation effect in superconducting bulk magnets which is extremely relevant to applying superconducting technology to rotating machines.