New materials, methods boost HTS economics

摘要

On a site in Schenectady, NY, IGC-uperpower, a wholly owned subsidiary of Intermagnetics General Corpora-tion, is currently building pilot-scale second-generation high-temperature superconducting (HTS) technology. Until now, the promise of high-temperature superconductors has not found practical application, for both cost and performance reasons. First-generation, silver-based HTS materials are inherently costly. Moreover, their performance advantage over conventional copper and aluminum wires has not been large enough to stimulate widespread interest. High-purity silver accounts for about two-thirds of the materials composition of first-generation BSCCO-based superconductors, making them too expensive for practical use. In addition, they are fabricated using a labor-intensive batch process, in which the superconducting material is packed into silver tubing, heat-treated and then drawn and rolled in several stages to form HTS tapes. This process also potentially impacts product quality in two ways: in materials consistency and in the opportunity for operator error.