Welding done in seconds

摘要

Researchers at the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas in Austin claim a breakthrough that could reduce the weldingtime for infrastructure components to seconds.The team is working on homopolar welding, which uses very high electrical currents to join metal. Its crucial equipment is the homopolar generator (HPG) which produces currents in the mega-amp scale.The most useful characteristic of an HPG is its ability to store energy at low power for a longtime in a rotating disc, then deliver very high power over a short time, which leaves it subject to the drawbacks associated with rotating electrical machinery.