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news release:
American Superconductor Achieves Important Benchmarks
for Commercialization of Second Generation High Temperature Superconductor Wire
Washington, Aug. 3: American Superconductor Corporation
(Nasdaq: AMSC),
a leading electricity solutions company, announced that it has achieved several
significant benchmarks important to the commercialization of second
generation (2G) HTS wire including
record lengths of a new three-ply, 4.4-millimeter (mm) wide, 2G HTS wire,
fabrication and testing of electromagnetic coils utilizing this wire, and
new record 2G wire performance levels.
The announcement was made at the U.S. Department of Energy's
(DOE) Annual superconductivity Peer Review meeting, a major annual industry
event focused on the research and development of high temperature superconductor
(HTS) technology. These
technological achievements will advance the practicality of 2G wire by
increasing its electrical and mechanical stability
to meet commercial performance levels and contribute dramatically to the
reduction of manufacturing costs,
key to the commercialization of HTS wire products.
Dr. Greg Yurek, the company's chief executive officer, announced in a
plenary speech at the DOE meeting that AMSC ad successfully developed and
demonstrated the first long lengths of 344 superconductor wire, a new 3-ply,
4.4-millimeter (mm) wide 2G HTS wire. Yurek
introduced the term "344 superconductor wire" in his speech.
The wire has industry standard dimensions, and when cooled with liquid
nitrogen -- the coolant of choice for applications such as superconductor power
transmission cables - conducts more
than 75 times the electrical current of copper wire with the same dimensions.
Derived from the world's first 80- to 100-meter-long, 4-centimeter (cm) wide
strips of 2G HTS material, the first 344 superconductor wire was produced using
AMSC's continuous reel-to-reel deposition processes. Previously, only 1-cm wide strips of 2G
material had been produced in comparable lengths.
AMSC's manufacturing method is based on a reel-to-reel process in which
4-cm wide strips are slit to produce 80- to 100-meter-long tape-shaped wires,
which are then laminated in a wave soldering operation with copper, or other
metals, to produce the 4.4-mm wide wires. The
ability to manufacture wider strips of high performance 2G HTS material is
important because it means that only a single pass of a 4-cm wide strip through
each of the manufacturing steps is needed to produce eight HTS wires when the
wide strip goes through a slitting operation.
The wire's "three-ply" architecture -- consisting
of slit 2G tape sandwiched between thin copper strips -- is similar to that of
AMSC's commercial first generation (1G) HTS wire. It utilizes technology, manufacturing equipment and expertise
from the company's 1G manufacturing
operation. A
magnified transverse cross-section of the architecture of 344 superconductor
wire can be found on AMSC's website at http://www.amsuper.com.
These latest advances in the production of 344 superconductor wire mean AMSC is
firmly on track to achieve its 2G wire manufacturing scale-up plan, which
includes initiation of regular production runs of 100-meter long 344
superconductor wire in the current quarter.
The company remains on plan to complete the demonstration of all aspects
of its proprietary 2G HTS wire manufacturing technology by December 2005, and to
begin ordering the remaining full-scale production equipment needed for its
pilot wire manufacturing operation in early calendar 2006.
Yurek confirmed at the DOE Peer Review meeting that AMSC
expects to ship approximately 10,000 meters of 344 superconductor wire to
customers during the next 12 to 15 months, and to have a manufacturing capacity
for this wire of 300,000 meters per year by December 2007.
Several long-length, 344 superconductor wires were utilized
by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to produce the first electromagnetic
coil made with this new wire. Electromagnetic
coils are devices that are at the heart of most electrical applications, such as
motors, and generators, the only significant exception being power transmission
cables. The ORNL coil produced a
magnetic field of 0.32 Tesla (18,042 Amp-turns) when cooled with liquid
nitrogen, demonstrating both the mechanical robustness and the excellent
electrical performance of the new 344 superconductor wires.
This is the world's highest performance electromagnetic coil fabricated
with 2G HTS wire -- a substantial step forward in the migration from 1G to 2G
HTS wire.
In addition, AMSC's SuperMachines(TM) business unit wound an
87-meter length of the new 344 superconductor wire into a race-track-shaped
motor coil. The coil produced 4,620 Amp-turns with liquid nitrogen cooling,
sufficiently powerful enough to be utilized in production of a 50- horsepower
electrical motor with liquid nitrogen cooling.
The SuperMachines business unit is currently manufacturing a
49,000- horsepower (36.5- megawatt) ship propulsion motor utilizing AMSC's first
generation HTS wire. Yurek
commented, "Based on our 14 years of experience designing, developing and
making HTS motors, we see the rapid adoption of AMSC's new, lower cost 344
superconductor wire in the manufacture of motors,
generators and synchronous condensers will give us an additional distinct
advantage in the HTS rotating machines marketplace."
Utilizing an advanced version of AMSC's proprietary
Metal-Organic Deposition, or "MOD", coating process to make the
superconductor layer in 2G HTS wires, AMSC increased the HTS coating thickness
in 4-cm wide strips by 75% from 0.8 microns to 1.4 microns.
This advanced MOD process also utilizes AMSC's proprietary nanodot
technology, which substantially improves the performance of 2G HTS wire in the
presence of the magnetic fields that are typical of applications such as motors
and generators. The
electrical current conducted by up to five-meter lengths of 344 superconductor
wire produced using the advanced MOD process was 125 Amperes when cooled with
liquid nitrogen. This record
performance level for 2G HTS wires with industry standard dimensions meets
commercial electrical performance specifications for HTS wires.
Yurek commented that this substantial increase in wire
performance was achieved with a very simple change in AMSC's proprietary
manufacturing process. "The
result is that our advanced MOD process adds very little manufacturing cost
while yielding a substantial increase in commercial electrical performance
specifications," he said.
AMSC also produced 4.4-mm wide wires consisting of two slit
tapes made with the advanced MOD process, which were subsequently laminated
together between copper tapes to produce prototype wires that conducted 240
Amperes of electrical current (545 Amperes/cm-width) when cooled with liquid
nitrogen. "The outstanding electrical performance of these prototype wires
with industry standard dimensions is far above current 1G performance levels and
well beyond
our expectations at this stage of development of 2G HTS wire
technology," said Yurek. "This
opens the door to achieving ultra-high electrical performance in 2G HTS wires,
needed, for example, in certain military applications.
We plan to integrate the advanced MOD technology into our 2G pilot line
during the next year, which will further differentiate us in the
marketplace."
AMSC's 344 superconductor wire has been developed as a
drop-in replacement for its commercial, 1G HTS wire, today's workhorse for the
emerging HTS industry. The
company's 1G HTS wire has essentially the same dimensions as the new 344
superconductor wire, is produced in 1,000 meter lengths and transmits more than
150 times the electrical current of copper wire of the same size, but must be
produced one wire at a time. AMSC
has sold 1G HTS wire to customers in 20 countries around the world for a wide
array of applications in order to seed the market for HTS applications that AMSC
expects will migrate to 344 superconductor wire.
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