Although the technology has now been proven, the wider use of MAGLEV vehicles has been constrained by political and environmental concerns (strong magnetic fields can create a bio-hazard). The world's first MAGLEV train to be adopted into commercial service, a shuttle in Birmingham, England, shut down in 1997 after operating for 11 years. A Sino-German maglev is currently operating over a 30-km course at Pudong International Airport in Shanghai, China. The U.S. plans to put its first (non-superconducting) Maglev train into operation on a Virginia college campus. Click this link for a website that lists other uses for MAGLEV.
MRI of a human skull.
An area where superconductors can perform a life-saving function is in the field of biomagnetism. Doctors need a non-invasive means of determining what's going on inside the human body. By impinging a strong superconductor-derived magnetic field into the body, hydrogen atoms that exist in the body's water and fat molecules are forced to accept energy from the magnetic field. They then release this energy at a frequency that can be detected and displayed graphically by a computer. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) was actually discovered in the mid 1940's. But, the first MRI exam on a human being was not performed until July 3, 1977. And, it took almost five hours to produce one image! Today's faster computers process the data in much less time. A tutorial is available on MRI at this link. Or read the latest MRI news at this link.
SQUID
The Korean Superconductivity Group within KRISS has carried biomagnetic technology a step further with the development of a double-relaxation oscillation SQUID (Superconducting QUantum Interference Device) for use in Magnetoencephalography. SQUID's are capable of sensing a change in a magnetic field over a billion times weaker than the force that moves the needle on a compass (compass: 5e-5T, SQUID: e-14T.). With this technology, the body can be probed to certain depths without the need for the strong magnetic fields associated with MRI's.
Probably the one event, more than any other, that has been responsible for putting "superconductors" into the American lexicon was the Superconducting Super-Collider project planned for construction in Ellis county, Texas. Though Congress cancelled the multi-billion dollar effort in 1993, the concept of such a large, high-energy collider would never have been viable without superconductors. High-energy particle research hinges on being able to accelerate sub-atomic particles to nearly the speed of light. Superconductor magnets make this possible. CERN, a consortium of several European nations, is doing something similar with its Large Hadron Collider (LHC) recently inaugurated along the Franco-Swiss border.
Other related web sites worth visiting include the proton-antiproton collider page at Fermilab. This was the first facility to use superconducting magnets. Get information on the electron-proton collider HERA at the German lab pages of DESY (with English text). And Brookhaven National Laboratory features a page dedicated to its RHIC heavy-ion collider.
Probably the one event, more than any other, that has been responsible for putting "superconductors" into the American lexicon was the Superconducting Super-Collider project planned for construction in Ellis county, Texas. Though Congress cancelled the multi-billion dollar effort in 1993, the concept of such a large, high-energy collider would never have been viable without superconductors. High-energy particle research hinges on being able to accelerate sub-atomic particles to nearly the speed of light. Superconductor magnets make this possible. CERN, a consortium of several European nations, is doing something similar with its Large Hadron Collider (LHC) recently inaugurated along the Franco-Swiss border.
Other related web sites worth visiting include the proton-antiproton collider page at Fermilab. This was the first facility to use superconducting magnets. Get information on the electron-proton collider HERA at the German lab pages of DESY (with English text). And Brookhaven National Laboratory features a page dedicated to its RHIC heavy-ion collider.
Electric Generators
Electric generators made with superconducting wire are far more efficient than conventional generators wound with copper wire. In fact, their efficiency is above 99% and their size about half that of conventional generators. These facts make them very lucrative ventures for power utilities
An idealized application for superconductors is to employ them in the transmission of commercial power to cities. However, due to the high cost and impracticality of cooling miles of superconducting wire to cryogenic temperatures, this has only happened with short "test runs".
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