Monday, May 9, 2005

Energy

AMSC demonstrates new manufacturing technology for HTS wire

American Superconductor Corp. has successfully produced the world's first 20-meter strips of 4-centimeter-wide second-generation high temperature superconductor material in a continuous reel-to-reel manufacturing process.

Previously, only 1cm strips had been produced in long lengths. Several 4cm-wide strips, each about 20 meters long, were produced in AMSC's pre-pilot second-generation manufacturing line and were then slit in a reel-to-reel operation to produce 20-meter laminated 0.44cm tape-shaped wires - industry standard dimensions for commercial HTS wire.

Each of the laminated, individual 0.44-cm 2G HTS wires conducted from 60 to 70 amperes of electrical current end-to-end when cooled with liquid nitrogen, the coolant of choice for applications such as power transmission cables. This is approximately 75 times the current that can be carried by copper wire of the same size - a significant achievement at this stage of the manufacturing scale-up of 2G HTS wire, according to AMSC.

AMSC officials say they expect the electrical current of the second-generation wire to exceed that of its first generation wire as R&D results are implemented in its manufacturing line. A primary objective of the new wire is to achieve manufacturing costs that are one-half to one-fifth those of the first-generation wire.