TOMSK, Dec 25 – RIA Tomsk. Scientists of Tomsk State University (TSU) plan to create a method within two years by means of which it will be possible to increase conductivity of aluminum wires for power transmission, the employee of the Laboratory of Manotechnologies in Metallurgy of the university Ilya Zhukov reported to RIA Tomsk.
"Level of consumption of the electric power constantly grows, load of the existing power lines (whiche are often not new) increases because of it. The electric grid companies are forced to transfer load on wires of bigger section. But they are heavy, old support were not constructed for them, it is necessary to build new ones", – he told.
According to Zhukov, the development of TSU will increase durability of light aluminum alloys not less than for 50% without decrease in conductivity and will help to solve the problem of power engineering specialists. The method offered by the scientists will increase plasticity for 7-8% and conductivity of metal by 1,5-2%. To improve properties of aluminum, the scientists enter into melt micro and nanoparticles of metal borides, influencing with ultrasound for their uniform distribution in alloy.
"Boron is widely applied in metallurgy to purify metal of foreign impurity and to increase conductivity. However it is impossible to enter it into aluminum in pure form therefore we will use boron-containing ligatures. Thanks to external ultrasonic influence evenly distributed nonmetallic particles will increase mechanical properties of alloys considerably", – he noted.
The scientist told that boron will promote increase in conductivity of alloy. Designs of such material will be easier therefore the power line can be carried out on long distances. Also alloy can be used in the aviation industry.The researchers won the Russian President's grant in 1,2 million rubles for the work. Similar class of a ligature isn't made in Russia; the domestic companies buy them in the Netherlands and Germany. "We want to exceed foreign alloys on indicators, – Zhukov emphasized. – We worked in other projects, for example, with the European Space Agency, and there we managed to exceed indicators".