High-temperature superconductors and the Superconducting Super Collider

The SSC design group looked at the technical and cost impacts of somewhat idealized superconductors. They did the following: (1) took the SSC magnet made of niobium-titanium cable and replaced it (in paper studies) with cable made of the new high-temperature materials assuming it to be the same price and size as the original. However, it will work at 77 K instead of 4 K; (2) did a direct replacement (on paper) with the warm superconductors at 4 k. The refrigeration system is the same, it has the same critical density; however, it is assumed that the critical current density is independent of the field and they tried to make higher field magnets; (3) started to investigate limits that are independent of superconductor parameters. The results for the high-temperature model were that about $210 million would be saved in the SSC. However this is not the net cost savings because there are additional cost. The vacuum system becomes more expensive -$150 million more. But there are technical problems with the vacuum system. The results for the low-temperature model where a direct substitution was done keeping the critical current density the same and assuming it was independent of field were that there would eventually be mechanical problems. One possible positive application of high-temperature superconductors to the SSC would be for ultra-high gradient quadrupoles. 5 figures