Research activities of wires and tapes within the EASITRAIN project

The Magnesium Diboride is a superconducting compound discovered
in 2001 with a relatively high-critical temperature. The absence of
weak-link and the simple crystalline structure allows producing low-
cost wires through the powder in tube (PIT) technique, allowing the
industrial application.
In the past ten years, the MgB2 wire technology has made a
significant progress, thanks to the continuing development and
improvement supported mostly at industrial level. MgB2 is now a
good candidate to replace NbTi in cryogenic-free MRI magnets, but
also in rotating electrical machines, wave-energy converters and in
high current cables for powering devices or in transmission and
distribution electrical power lines.
The effort made by Columbus MgB2 wire unit (ASG Superconductors
Spa) develop a technology which allows to produces MgB2 multi-
filamentary wires with unit length exceeding 2-4 Km in a single piece.