Title III Nets Honors for High-Temperature Superconducting Advances Published Nov. 2, 2010 By Mr. Gregory McGath Materials and Manufacturing WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio -- Having not long ago finished a 5-year effort to establish commercial production capabilities for yttrium barium copper oxide-coated high-temperature superconductor wire--a technology that will significantly increase device energy efficiency for several military and industrial applications--a team led by Air Force Research Laboratory Manufacturing Technology engineers recently earned the 2010 Federal Laboratory Consortium Technology Transfer Interagency Partnership Award for its work. The Defense Production Act Title III program involved collaboration with AFRL propulsion experts, as well as researchers from the Department of Energy and the Naval Research Lab. Also leveraged were the unique manufacturing capabilities of two commercial partners (American Superconductor and SuperPower, Inc.) in achieving program goals, which involved product performance metrics addressing conductor length; critical current; engineering current density; production capacity; and business metrics for long-term viability such as sales, production capacity, and cost. The advantages generated through the YBCO HTS work incentivized both companies to make significant leaps in their respective production processes. For example, prior to realizing these improvements, each company achieved typical conductor lengths of just 10-20 m per production run. With the effort now concluded, both are producing YBCO-coated HTS wire that is 100 times longer and has over 5 times the electric current carrying capacity at operating temperatures. This translates into hundreds of kilometers, rather than simply meters, of production capacity--a capability that did not exist before program-based enhancements were implemented. Further, by accelerating the transition of this technology, the ManTech-led endeavor has made the benefits of YBCO-coated HTS wire available to the military and commercial sector 5-7 years earlier than might otherwise have been feasible. The AFRL team members receiving the award include Dr. Paul Barnes, Mr. Ted Finnessy, Dr. Charles Oberly, and Mr. Tim Peterson.