The development of standards for practical superconductors

The program to develop standard measurement practices for practical superconductors includes the generation of uniform definitions of terms, the development of standard measurement techniques, and comparisons of these measurements using standard reference materials. The initial sets of definitions have been published and their development will be described. Responses will be solicited on terms whose definitions are still in development or are controversial. The progress in the development of standard measurement techniques for critical current, transient losses and critical temperature will be discussed. The different techniques will be compared and the experimental parameters which must be carefully controlled will be enumerated.