Resistance-free wire takes long jump. (Technology).Researchers worldwide are racing to develop low-cost wire with no electric resistance. Making it in practical lengths has been a tough challenge. A wire-making company has now demonstrated a process that yields potentially inexpensive, high-current wires about 10 times longer than previous prototypes. For the past few years, electric utilities have been field-testing power cables and other equipment containing wires of so-called high-temperature superconductors (SN: 11/18/00, p. 330). Those materials lose all electric resistance at temperatures that are extremely cold yet much higher than the operating temperatures of ordinary superconductors. Because the field-tested wires include silver, they're pricey. As an alternative, researchers have been developing a ribbonlike wire of cheap nickel alloy Noun 1. nickel alloy - an alloy whose main constituent is nickel nickel-base alloy alloy, metal - a mixture containing two or more metallic elements or metallic and nonmetallic elements usually fused together or dissolving into each other when molten; "brass coated with a veneer of high-temperature superconductor A material that has little resistance to the flow of electricity. Traditional superconductors operate at absolute zero (-459.67 degrees Fahrenheit or -273.15 degrees Celsius). Experiments in the 1980s raised the temperature to -321 degrees Fahrenheit. . Yet until recently, the developers couldn't make such ribbons both longer than a meter and able to carry high currents. Last month, American Superconductor American Superconductor is a technology company based in Westborough, Massachusetts specializing in the design and manufacture of superconducting wires and power converters. It is listed on Nasdaq under the symbol AMSC. of Westborough, Mass., with help from Oak Ridge Oak Ridge, city (1990 pop. 27,310), Anderson and Roane counties, E Tenn., on Black Oak Ridge and the Clinch River; founded by the U.S. government 1942, inc. as an independent city 1959. (Tenn.) National Laboratory, produced the first 10-meter-long ribbons that can superconduct electricity at 100 amperes per centimeter centimeter (sĕn`tĭmē'tər), abbr. cm, unit of length equal to 0.01 meter, the basic unit of length in the metric system. The centimeter is the unit of length in the cgs system. It is approximately equal to 0. of ribbon width. Scientists achieved that sudden leap by fine-tuning chemical reactions This is the 18th episode of television drama Men in Trees. It originally aired on June 25, 2007 on the TV2 network in New Zealand as a continuation of season 1. Recap Marin and Cash have a stew cook off, she admits his is better than hers. in a prototype production line, says company president Gregory J. Yurek. The researchers still need to figure out how to make kilometer lengths of such ribbons that carry even higher currents, he says. |
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