Marked anisotropy of pinning in the cross section of a superconducting niob
ium-titanium wire was predicted and found experimentally. The pinning of th
e azimuthal magnetic flux appears to be higher than that of the radial flux
; this fact correlates with the character of deformation of the material du
ring the production of wire. The anisotropy of pinning in the cross section
of a wire shows up in the behavior of the dependence of the critical curre
nt on the applied magnetic field and substantially affects the magnetic mom
ent of the wire in a transverse magnetic filed. Procedures neglecting the r
eal anisotropy of superconducting samples lead to an error in the determina
tion of the critical current density and cause differences in the values de
termined by the four-probe and contact-free techniques. The use of the newl
y developed methods and algorithms for the investigation of superconductors
with anisotropic pinning allows one to calculate both integral parameters
of the wire and the distribution of the magnetic induction and critical cur
rent density over the cross section.