Source: Festo

Festo presented its SupraMotor technology platform, a superconductive claw pole motor with solid-body cooling, at the Hanover Messe 2018 trade fair in Germany. The SupraMotor features a highly compact design, a high holding torque and a durable electrical direct cooling system.

The superconductive drive measures only about a meter in length and up to 23 centimeters in diameter and is designed to exploit the effect that electricity within an appropriately cooled superconductor is transmitted without loss. This allows a strong magnetic field to be generated with very high currents that can be used for the motor.

The high overload capacity system is suitable for applications in continuous operation. The risk of overheating is effectively zero as the superconducting coils carry the electrical current without resistance. The motor works particularly efficiently at low speeds with very high torques. If a load must be held, the drive uses no energy even at maximum holding torque.

The motor’s output power is in the double-digit kilowatt range but it only needs energy for cooling in the low three-digit watt range. The device is currently only operated with low phase currents, as the ferromagnetic materials available until now are unable to take larger magnetic flux densities. Through further research, however, new concepts and materials could be investigated, which could fully exploit the superconductor’s current carrying capacity of well over 100 amperes.