An assessment of superconducting magnets for the next decade of applications

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Potential applications for superconducting magnets have received substantial attention since the early 1960's when the modern era of high field superconducting materials began. A major survey of current and near-term applications world wide was published in 1974 and updated for the U.S. in 1976 . The total US expenditures in FY75 were approximately <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$30 \times 10^{6}</tex> distributed in all applied areas of superconductivity. A number of authors have examined specific areas of superconducting magnet applications, and we note a few of the most recent: High Energy Physics, Fusion, MHD, Magnetically Leviated Vehicles, Magnetic Separation, Energy Storage, Pulsed Energy Delivery, Electron Microscopes, and Medical Applications. A summary application paper by Powell gives an excellent overview of large scale applications and a summary paper by Kolm concentrates on many of the less well known industrial applications. There surely are many other applications overlooked by these brief references, and many more, as yet, unformulated. The number of superconducting magnets applied in and out of the Laboratory will grow dramatically over the next decade. The big money areas will be high-energy physics ring magnets, followed by CTR experimental coils, with MHD magnets a probable third in magnitude. No other single magnet application is likely to become a big money operation, but collectively they will be very significant. Magnetic levitation research will continue overseas, but is unlikely to be adopted for transit use in the next decade. Magnetic energy storage research will expand, but the scale necessary for economic adoption will preclude its near-term application. Magnetic separation will spread to areas like fuel desulferization, waste water treatment, ore benefication, and blood processing, but the areas where superconducting magnets are economically justifiable will likely remain small. In the search for large market applications, we should not overlook the uniqueness superconductivity offers to the solution of difficult, individualized, science and engineering problems. Perhaps that will always be its forte, and only when viewed collectively can the true impace on the future be assessed.