Fabrication of multifilamentary Nb-Al by a powder metallurgy process

Fabrication of multifilamentary Nb-Al superconducting wires with high overall critical current densities at high fields is discussed. Powder metallurgy processed materials have been made with low reaction temperatures and with J
c
> 10
⁴
A/cm
²
at 14 T. The effects of variations of Nb and Al powder size, composition, reduction ratio, reaction temperature, and reaction time on J
c
vs appiied field are presented. All the Nb-Al materials show good strain tolerance at high J
c
and high field. The results also show that scaleup is promising.