U.S. - U.S.S.R. cooperation in superconducting power transmission

The cooperative exchange between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in the field of superconducting power transmission began in 1971 when a U.S. delegation representing government and industry met with a Soviet delegation in Moscow. The following year a Soviet delegation met in the U.S. and this alternating pattern has continued to the present. The development and guidance of the cooperation by these yearly meetings of delegations from the coordinating committee is described in context with the evolving U.S. and Soviet national programs to develop superconducting power transmission. The U.S. national program is now concentrated in the projects at the Brookhaven National Laboratory and the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory while the Soviet program is concentrated in projects at the G. M. Krzhizha-novsky Power Engineering Institute, the All-Union Research Institute for the Cable Industry and the Lenin All-Union Electrotechnical Institute. These projects are briefly reviewed along with the supporting projects in other institutions in both countries. The detailed planning for the cooperation is carried out by six technical working groups whose members are drawn from the broad technical community that supports the national programs. These groups also report on the technical progress in each country. To facilitate these reports, five joint technical symposia have been held, one at each of the delegation meetings except for the 1977 meeting in Moscow. Highlights of these symposia will be presented. At the present time the cooperation is focused on joint participation in both the small scale laboratory studies and large scale test installations which each country is conducting as part of its national program. The results from the eight joint experiments conducted since 1971 will be presented along with some of the future plans and prospects.