Oct 10 2002
American Superconductor announced today that they have just received a cost sharing grant from the US Government’s Advanced Technology Program (ATP). The grant worth $2 million will be used to accelerate the scale up of their patented high volume, low cost manufacturing process for the production of high temperature superconducting (HTS) wires.
Work will be focussed on the development and implementation of novel thermal processing equipment, that is expected to bring about further performance gains for the high temperature superconducting wires with coated conductor wire architecture.
The process used to produce the coated conductor HTS wires requires lower capital expenditure compared to competing technologies. The process itself integrates aspects such as manufacturing process control, cleanliness of semiconductor fabrication and reel-to-reel web handling, with the speed of production of textile manufacture, at the temperatures of optical fibre synthesis.
American Superconductor have been developing the coated conductor HTS wires for the last seven years. However, during the last quarter, they have achieved results that indicate that they can exceed the price/performance ratio of conventional copper wires. This could result in the commercial acceptance of HTS wires in the marketplace sooner than was previously expected.
American Superconductor expect to have long lengths of the coated conductor HTS wires available in limited volumes by 2005. These will go some way to replacing their existing multi-filamentary composite wires, currently in use. The coated conductor wires offer improved performance at a significantly reduced cost compared to existing materials.
For more information on superconductors, click here.