Sooner or Later

sceadwian

Joined Jun 1, 2009
499
Bill, I think you're a little more optimistic than reality can support as far as room temperature super conductivity goes. The higher temperature super conductors do have higher limits to their magnetic field density, and if you break that bad things can happen, nothing I've ever read suggests any magical island of higher temperature feasibility anytime soon. They're still experimenting with new materials but even the behavior of these materials and the conditions under which they can maintain super conductivity aren't well understood.
 

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
Follow some of the articles on www.physorg.com and you will see what I mean. There is some heavy duty research being done, and there are materials that can't be made with today's tech that show a lot of promise. We are at the phase were we can just barely model superconductors, the high temp versions have broken from the cooper pair model. New theories are being developed almost monthly. It is a pretty exciting time for this field.

As for the promising materials, metallic hydrogen comes to mind. We can't make it, not even close, but they are coming up with hybrids that keep pushing the temperature limits up, along with new geometries.

Airplanes didn't go to spacecraft overnight, it was a set of slow steady improvements. We are seeing something very similar with superconductor research. It is only around 20 years old, but the improvements keep coming.
 

sceadwian

Joined Jun 1, 2009
499
Super conductor research? The effect was first observed in 1911, and it's been played with since then. So you're off by 80 years or so. Sure we understand it more now, but that's from an armchair physicist perspective. Theories are fine and good, but there are more than enough theories to go around for any given subject, what's needed is breakthrough testing, some of which I'm sure is occurring, but it's essentially a best guess route. I wouldn't say there are any major breakthroughs on the cusp of occurring, unless you know something I don't that you could explain to me =)
 

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
Which isn't high temperature superconductors. The field was static until these materials were discovered in the 1980's. They break the old theories, which are probably still valid for the old school.

Come on man, you are quibbling over nothing. Try reading the links before you blow it off. The field isn't what was discovered in 1911, and yes, there have been and are major breakthroughs to those who keep up on the literature. I'm no expert, but I do read and have shown you one source.
 

Thread Starter

Potato Pudding

Joined Jun 11, 2010
688
I am trying to follow the Superconducting limits and I just realized something from this.

Size of the strands isn't that important, it is the magnetic field and temperature that are the limiters. Magnetic field translates as amperage density though. This will be true even if the make the magic goal of room temperature.
Is the induction in the superconductor creating the magnetic field that will limit the current because I am trying to understand where I got the small strands limit and that would seem to tie back in. Larger wires would hit the current limit depending on their magnetic field generation and create diminishing returns in increasing the size of the superconducting wires.
 

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
It is a flux density issue. Exceed a certain number of Tesla's and the superconductor shuts down.

Amperage, not wire size, determines the magnetic field generated. You might get a bit more by spreading the field around, but I doubt it will be that much.
 

Thread Starter

Potato Pudding

Joined Jun 11, 2010
688
If you ran closely interleaved superconductors with counter currents to try and cancel out their magnetic fields, wouldn't that allow more total current?

The problem is that you would seem to have zero net power transmission gains.

The solution to that would be that the generation point would need to run two sets of transmission lines in opposite phases, one that sources and one that sinks.

Have I messed up something basic like the right hand rule?
 

Thread Starter

Potato Pudding

Joined Jun 11, 2010
688
In order to cancel out the the magnetic fields you would need nearly 100% transformer loss.

So thats never mind the previous question.
 

tom66

Joined May 9, 2009
2,595
I'd like to see practical memristors. And passive ones, that you can include on your breadboard. And memristor hard disks. (Before that, low cost SSDs would also be cool.)
 
Top