Economic evaluation of sol gel based film coating scheme for HTS materials

Abstract

Under the sponsorship of the US Department of Energy (USDOE), the University of Tennessee Space Institute (UTSI) carried out an engineering evaluation of various options to manufacture long lengths of high-temperature superconductor (HTS) wire/tape. As a result, the leading candidates to apply buffer and/or YBCO (HTS) materials were identified as based on metal organic decomposition (MOD), sol–gel, metal organics chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD) and pulsed laser deposition (PLD). Earlier, Chapman had developed economics for manufacturing schemes based on MOCVD, e-beam and PLD. Using his approach, preliminary economics for a sol–gel based manufacturing scheme has been estimated. In this paper, major findings from our economic evaluation of the sol–gel based film coating scheme are reported.