Joseph Lynch

Advances in second generation high temperature superconducting wire manufacturing and R&D at American Superconductor Corporation

The RABiTS?/MOD-YBCO (rolling assisted biaxially textured substrate/metal?organic deposition of YBa2Cu3O7??) route has been established as a low-cost manufacturing process for producing high performance second generation (2G) wire. American Superconductor Corporation (AMSC) has used this approach to establish a production scale manufacturing line based on a wide-web manufacturing process. This initial production line is currently capable of producing 2G wire in lengths to 500?m with critical currents exceeding 250? A?cmwidth?1 at 77?K, in the self-field. The wide-web process, combined with slitting and lamination processes, allows customization of the 2G wire width and stabilizer composition to meet application specific wire requirements. The production line is currently supplying 2G wire for multiple cable, fault current limiter and coil applications. Ongoing R&D is focused on the development of thicker YBCO layers and improved flux pinning centers. This paper reviews the history of 2G wire development at AMSC, summarizes the current capability of the 2G wire manufacturing at AMSC, and describes future R&D improvements.

Uniform performance of continuously processed MOD-YBCO-coated conductors using a textured Ni?W substrate

Second-generation coated conductor composite HTS wires have been fabricated using a continuous reel-to-reel process with deformation-textured Ni–W substrates and a metal-organic deposition process for YBa2Cu3O7−x. Earlier results on 1 m long and 1 cm wide wires with 77 K critical current performance greater than 100 A cm−1 width have now been extended to 7.5 m in length and even higher performance, with one wire at 132 and another at 127 A cm−1 width. Performance as a function of wire length is remarkably uniform, with only 2–4% standard deviation when measured on a 50 cm length scale. The length-scale dependence of the deviation is compared with a statistical calculation.