American Superconductor Gets DOD Funding Extension

Online staff -- Electronic News, 1/3/2006

American Superconductor Corp. has won a $5.35 million follow-on contract from the Department of Defense Title II program for accelerating the scale-up of its manufacturing of second generation high temperature superconductor (HTS) wire.

The funding is provided through the Air Force Research Laboratory and will run until June 30, 2008.  AMSC expects its expenses under the program to be about $13.6 million. The funding from the DoD will reduce the company’s investment for the program to about $8.2 million.

The new funding award will assist AMSC in extending its current second generation HTS wire manufacturing operation to fund production with wire lengths up to 1,000 meters and a capacity of 300,000 meters per year by December 2007.

By the end of the phase 3 program, the Westborough, Mass.-based company expects the production facility to demonstrate both technologically and economically that it can expand to even larger production levels.

Under previous Title III funding, AMSC developed a proprietary manufacturing process to produce 4-centimeter-wide strips of second generation HTS material in lengths up to 100 meters.  When slit and laminated with copper tapes into a final 0.44 cm width, it becomes a very robust and environmentally stable product called "344 superconductors."

The Title III funding will continue to be very important in reducing the company's investment in its accelerated manufacturing scale-up of 344 superconductors, according to AMSC's chief executive officer, Greg Yurek. 

"We started regular processing of 100-meter lengths of 4-centimeter wide strips and of 344 superconductors made from the wide strips on schedule in September 2005," he said. "At that time, we also began to order new full-scale manufacturing equipment for our pilot manufacturing line -- ahead of our original schedule. We expect to achieve a manufacturing capacity of 300,000 meters per year of 344 superconductors by December 2007."