The 2013 Workshop on Electromagnetic and Mechanical Effects in Superconductors (MEM13).

The 2013 MEM workshop is the sixth in the series and proved to be one of the largest, with over 60 participants and over 40 presentations. Only a small selection of these presentations have progressed from PowerPoint to a reviewed paper accepted for publication in Superconductor Science and Technology (SUST). However, the dynamics of a good workshop should not be judged solely by the output of high quality papers. The interplay between electromagnetic and mechanical effects in superconductors is proving to be one of the critical issues in understanding the factors that dominate the practical application of not only the more traditional low temperature superconductors (LTS) but also, perhaps surprisingly, the high temperature superconductors (HTS) materials too. The lessons learned in the design and the diagnostic techniques which have been developed for LTS now overlap into the HTS field. The MEM13 workshop provided an opportunity for informal discussion across these fields, to the benefit of all. The topics of the workshop were selected to allow, as far as practically possible, co-presentation of LTS and HTS materials, as follows: Electro-mechanical effects on practical conductor performance. Analysis of electro-mechanical effects. Diagnosis of electro-mechanical effects. Strain dependence. Simulations and standardized tests for electro-mechanical effects. Microstructure, properties and sensitivity. Coated conductors. Manufacture of LTS and HTS conductors. The papers were wide ranging, covering basic manufacturing issues through to sophisticated testing and advanced diagnosis tools. The MEM13 workshop provided many papers based on the ITER construction, and diagnoses using the large quantity of data available from the industrial scale fabrication and testing of ITER conductors, as well as papers on the frontiers of HTS industrial technologies. It was clear that the huge industrial fabrication of Nb3Sn conductors for ITER, and the associated test programmes, have driven the development of modelling and diagnostic tools to an extent that is exceptional. Assessment of these data, and the application of the conclusions, is only just beginning. We were also fortunate in having industrial contributions from leaders in the various HTS fields, covering production, production issues and critical performance problems. The papers selected for publication are in the more complete areas of development, where sufficient definitive conclusions were available to satisfy the publication requirements of the journal SUST. In the workshop environment, there were plenty of dynamic and lively discussions around the uncertainties. I expect that such discussions will sow the seeds of future developments, appearing in future MEM workshops. Acknowledgments Finally I would like to acknowledge the support and drive of the session moderators in the success of MEM13: A Devred, A Nijhuis, Y Yang, D Larbalestier, K Osamura and A Ballarino. Without them, the workshop and the discussions would have been far less lively and far less structured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]