The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research is building the NICA collider, Russia’s flagship physics facility. During the design, many technologies were developed that could be used outside of basic science. Among other things, scientists from Dubna set about creating a new energy storage device with record capacity for its class.
The magnetic systems of the accelerating rings of the NICA collider – Nuclotron and Booster – consume energy in an extremely uneven way. They create an impulse field with an oscillation period of four seconds or more, causing energy fluctuations in the network. This puts a load on the system and disrupts the operation of the accelerators themselves and the measuring equipment.
To smooth out peaks in consumption, you can install an energy storage device. Because fluctuations occur so quickly, chemical batteries cannot compensate for them: they take too long to charge and do not release charge fast enough.
jinr.ru
“Our drive power supply system will have two: capacitive, that is, capacitors and inductive. Inductive storage is a magnetic coil or solenoid. Its total energy will be equal to 3.65 MJ and it will be useful – 1.7. JINR Senior Researcher Mikhail Novikov, creator of the storage device, from Nuclotron It will transfer it back to Booster and back as it has already accumulated,” he said.
Inductive energy storage is based on powerful magnets, the main element of the NICA accelerator.
“The windings of NICA magnets are made of superconducting wire. The magnet is a cupronickel tube wrapped in a conductor made of an alloy of niobium and titanium, liquid helium flows at a temperature of -269 degrees Celsius – almost absolute zero. From this cable you can create products of complex geometry, and in it huge currents of kiloamperes can flow In addition to the main magnets, we proposed to make a “battery” of several megawatts from this cable. That is, it is an energy storage device into which you can supply a current, accumulate a few megajoules, and then feed a consumer, for example, a huge accelerator,” said Academician Grigory Trubnikov, Director of JINR To socialbites.ca.
A clear analogue of this driver can be considered an induction coil, which many saw in a school physics lesson. If you connect the bulb not directly to the battery, but through the coil, it will turn on when the circuit is closed and turn off, not immediately, but without any problems. This is because when the electrical circuit is closed, the coil accumulates energy in its magnetic field and then gives it back. The inductive storage of the NICA collider works similarly, except that the winding of this coil is made of a high-temperature superconductor (operating at liquid neon temperature, about 20 kelvin), which leads to immeasurably less energy. energy loss.
yaklass.ru
“Our coil retains energy for about an hour. We don’t need long-term storage, but if we made the contacts, not just the winding, superconducting, the stored energy would be stored indefinitely and without loss.”
Novikov explained. The coil should be closed with the least resistance to conserve the stored power.
The device works as an energy storage device and a surge protector at the same time. As an example, Trubnikov cites the operating scheme of hydrostorage stations: “Such stations operate around the clock, energy is consumed during the day, and at night, when the consumption is less, the energy produced but not demanded is collected. warehouse. It can be both a battery and a reservoir.
The setup weighs about one and a half tons and has a storage capacity of several megajoules. Compared to batteries, this is not much: for example, the Tesla Model S battery stores up to one hundred kilowatt-hours (360 MJ) weighing 540 kilograms. But the JINR storage device belongs to a completely different class and its task is to give and receive energy as quickly as possible. Therefore, it should not be compared with chemical current sources, but with capacitors and mechanical flywheels.
“Unlike kinetic storage devices, it does not have a rotating top and therefore there is no danger of explosion or dangerous vibration. Our magnet is reliable and should withstand 70 million charge-discharge cycles.
Capacitors also have these advantages, but our storage device outperforms them in terms of energy density. A capacitive storage device of similar energy will take not one cubic meter, but several large cabinets ”
said Novikov.
In its current state, an inductive storage tank requires a large cryogenic facility, but in the future it may be replaced with a miniature cryo-cooler that fits in a low cabinet. In this case, the drive can be installed in electrical systems to smooth out fluctuations, including urban, industrial and transportation. For example, it can be used to create an energy recovery system for an electric bus. Modern electric motors can generate current during braking, but batteries cannot quickly consume it. So adding a powerful and fast driver to the circuit will save battery power. Also, it is possible to produce uninterruptible power supplies for industries where high current efficiency is required on the basis.
Source: Gazeta
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