Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal

EPM is an academic institution (University) specialized in with the following mission:

Providing high-quality engineering training at every level, with a focus on human values;
Carrying out pertinent, high-level research as the basis for high-quality training at master’s and doctorate's levels that takes into consideration the needs of society and industry;
Wielding intellectual and social influence, achieved in concrete terms through interactions with external scientific circles both at home and abroad.

It was founded in 1873 and has grown to a mass of more than 6000 students in the latest years, including more than 1000 graduate students.

Within the FASTGRID project, EPM will bring a unique expertise in the modeling of electrical and thermal properties of HTS tapes at the microscopic scale, which is the key to optimize HTS tapes to the level of TRL envisioned in the project. The tools developed by EPM over the years (finite elements and their equivalent in terms of electrical circuits in professional power system packages such as EMTP-RV) are readily available and will considerably speed-up the start-up of the project.

In addition to the modeling capabilities, EPM is also the owner of a promising technology to speed up the quench propagation in HTS tapes, i.e. the Current Flow Diverter (CFD). Not only EPM knows how to simulate the concept, but it also has a substantial knowhow about ways to realize it and scale it up in an industrial setup, as well as experience in electrical characterization and microscopy to relate the measured performance of the tape to the microstructure of its various thin layers.

Read more about Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal

C-H. Bonnard, F. Sirois, C. Lacroix, G. Didier, “Multi-scale model of a resistive-type superconducting fault current limiters based on 2G HTS coated conductors”, submitted to IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity, May 2016, 11 pp.
C. Lacroix, F. Sirois, “Concept of a current flow diverter for accelerating the normal zone propagation velocity in 2G HTS coated conductors”, Superconductor Science and Technology, 27(3): 035003 (10pp.), 2014. 
Lacroix, Y. Lapierre, J. Coulombe, F. Sirois, “High normal zone propagation velocity in 2G HTS coated conductors with a current flow diverter architecture”, Superconductor Science and Technology, 27(5): 055013 (6 pp.), 2014. 
C. Lacroix, F. Sirois, K. Slimani, J. R. Cave, “Electro-thermal response of 2G HTS coated conductors subjected to current pulses”, IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity, 23(3): 6601605 (5 pp.), 2013. 
C. Lacroix, J.-H. Fournier-Lupien, K. McMeekin, F. Sirois, “Normal zone propagation velocity in 2G HTS coated conductor with high interfacial resistance”, IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity, 23(3): 4701605 (5 pp.), 2013.

Related projects previously supported by Canadian funding agencies:

Sirois et al., “Protection of superconducting wires and cables used in high power/high field applications”, $220,000 CAN from NSERC between 04/2016 – 03/2021 (5 years)
Sirois et al., “Improvement of efficiency and robustness of power superconducting devices through high performance simulation tools and extended resistivity models”, $320,000 CAN from NSERC between 04/2011 – 03/2016 (5 years)
Sirois et al., “Resistive interface for improving the normal zone propagation velocity in HTS coated conductors”, $125,000 CAN from NSERC between 04/2012 – 03/2013 (1 year)
F. Sirois et al., “Advanced Finite Element Techniques for Computing Magneto-thermal Transient Phenomena in High Temperature Superconductors”, $150,000 CAN from MITACS between 01/2010 – 06/2012 (2.5 years)

Infrastructure related to the FASTGRID proposal only:

Pulsed current sources and multi-tap voltage measurement systems to measure NZPV in HTS tapes
Various types of microscopes to assess the conformity of the tape architecture with respect to the ones designed by simulation
Substantial computational resources to realize in continuous the numerical simulations required within the FASTGRID project

(the infrastructure above is already up and running, and only need to be adjusted to the samples to be produced within this project)

Frédéric Sirois received the B.Eng. degree in Electrical Engineering from Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada, in 1997, and the Ph.D. degree from École Polytechnique de Montréal (EPM), Montréal, QC, Canada, in 2003. From 1998 to 2002, he was affiliated as a Ph.D. scholar with Hydro-Québec’s Research Institute (IREQ). From 2003 to 2005, he was a research engineer at IREQ. In 2005, he joined EPM, where he is now Full Professor and where he is at the head of the Laboratory in Electrical Energy (LEE), comprising a team on applied superconductivity. His main research interests include i) characterization and modeling of electric and magnetic properties of materials, ii) numerical techniques to solve nonlinear eddy current and thermal problems, iii) design of superconducting and magnetic devices, iv) integration of superconducting devices in power systems. He is a regular reviewer for several international journals and regularly serves as technical editor. He is the main initiator of the International Workshops on HTS modeling (2010), now at its 5th edition.

Christian Lacroix received the B.Eng. degree in Engineering Physics from EPM, Canada, in 2003, and the Ph.D. degree from EPM, Canada, in 2010. From 2010 to 2012, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the superconductivity group of the Hydro-Québec’s Research Institute (IREQ). He is currently research associate at Polytechnique Montréal, Canada, where he shares his time as the main researcher in the superconductivity and magnetisms laboratory. His research interests include characterization of magnetic materials and high-temperature superconductors, spin dynamics and quench modeling of superconducting tapes. He is a regular reviewer for several international journals.