Scope and Purpose Although conductors based on the Al5 intermetallic
compound Nb Sn 3 possess desirable high-field superconducting
properties, manufacturing and handling difficulties, coupled with the
tendency of their critical current densities to degrade rapidly under
stress, have generally restricted their use to fairly straightforward,
usually small-scale solenoidal-magnet applica- tions. Likewise the Al5
compound VGa, which has a wider critical strain 3 window than NbSn but a
uniformly lower upper critical field, has not 3 entered widespread
service. Strain has been found to have no measurable influence on either
the critical fields or the critical current densities of compound
superconductors with BI and Cl5 crystal structures, but as yet they are
still in the research and development stages. On the other hand,
conductors using the binary alloy Ti-Nb or multi component alloys based
on it, because of their relative ease of manufacture, excellent
mechanical properties, and relatively low strain sensitivities, are now
being pressed into service in numerous large-scale devices. Such
conductors are being wound into magnets for use in energy storage,
energy conversion (i. e., generators and motors), and high-energy
particle detectors and beam-handling magnets. of cold-rolled or drawn
Ti-Nb-alloy wire for superconducting The use magnet applications was
first proposed in 1961. During the ensuing ten years, while progress was
being made in the development of Cu-clad filamentary-Ti-Nb-alloy
conductors, Ti-Nb and other Ti-base binary transi- tion-metal (TM)
alloys were being employed as model systems in the fundamental study of
type-II superconductivity.