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Real World High-Temperature Superconductor Engine

Posted by timothy on from the now-for-the-hybrid-cars dept.

wes33 writes "An amazing technological achievement deploying high-temperature superconductors is reported in Space Daily. American Superconductor Corporation (nice scifi-ish name) has built a 5MW electric ship motor using high-temp. superconductor technology. The Queen Elizabeth's 44 MW engines weigh 400 tons each (and she has two); a single comparable HST motor (36.5 MW) will weigh 75 tons!"

3 of 44 comments (clear)

  1. Re:disappointing article... by tmacc · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.amsuper.com/products/htsWire/ Here is a link that has some good specs on the wire they use.

  2. Generators aren't critical... yet. by Engineer-Poet · · Score: 4, Informative
    The Navy doesn't like diesels because they're too noisy for vehicles which chase submarines. The alternative is a gas turbine, which spins fast enough that you can make an acceptably small and light alternator without going to extreme materials; only when you need to drive a low-speed propellor do you really need the high-current capabilities of superconductors.

    The technical explanation is that you can transfer a lot of power with a small, rapidly-varying magnetic field (like the itty-bitty toroid in your computer's power supply, running at 100 KHz instead of the 60 Hz power line frequency), but to transfer the same amount of power with a slowly-varying field needs a much bigger field, bigger currents and bigger losses. Superconductors get rid of the losses and can sustain bigger fields in a smaller package.

    --

    Sustainability and energy independence essay
  3. Re:what temp? by SurG · · Score: 3, Informative

    The link to their website [amsuper.com], mentioned earlier, has some really nice technical papers. For one type of the wire they use some complicated compound with Tc =110 K. Didn't find Tc for the second type of wire (Y123). I'm pretty sure, however, that even if Tc is higher than 77 K, they still run it on 77 K, since other parameters like Ic should be better than around Tc. And nitrogent is pretty much standart cryoagent anyway. Their critical current for those wires looks pretty impressive (> 100 A )