PSI, Villigen
ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Operation and upgrade of very intense proton beam accelerators like the PSI facility and the SNS spallation source at ORNL is typically constrained by potentially large machine activation. Besides the standard beam diagnostics, beam tomography techniques provide a reconstruction of the beam transverse phase space distribution, giving insights to potential loss sources like irregular tails or halos. Unlike more conventional measurement approaches (pepper pot, slits) beam tomography is a non destructive method that can be performed at high energies and, virtually, at any beam location. Results from the application of the Maximum Entropy Tomography (MENT) algorithm to different beam sections at PSI and SNS will be shown. In these reconstructions the effect of nonlinear forces is made visible in a way not otherwise available through wire scanners alone. These measurements represent a first step towards the design of a beam tomography implementation that can be smoothly employed as a reliable diagnostic tool.
PSI, Villigen
CIAE, Beijing
With an average beam power of 1.3MW the PSI proton accelerator facility is presently at the worldwide forefront of high intensity accelerators. This talk describes critical aspects and recent improvements related to generation and transport of the high intensity beam in a cyclotron based facility. The installation of new accelerating resonators in the second of two cyclotrons led to a significant improvement in view of beam intensity but also the reliability of the facility. Besides the overall performance and further upgrade plans the discussed topics include: space charge dominated beam dynamics, beam loss handling, activation and specialized technical interlock systems.
PSI, Villigen
A simulation based optimization of a collimator system at the 590 MeV PSI proton accelerator is presented, for the ongoing beam power upgrade from the current 1.2 MW [2 mA] towards 1.8 MW [3 mA]. The collimators are located downstream of the 4 cm thick graphite meson production target. These are designed to shape the optimal beam profile for low-loss beam transport to the neutron spallation source SINQ. The optimized collimators are predicted to withstand the beam intensity up to 3 mA, without sacrificing intended functionalities. The collimator system is under the heavy thermal load generated by a proton beam power deposition approximately of 240 kW at 3 mA, and it needs an active water cooling system. Advanced multiphysics simulations are performed for a set of geometric and material parameters, for the thermomechanical optimization of the collimator system. In particular, a FORTRAN subroutine is integrated into CFD-ACE+, for calculating local beam stopping power in the collimator system. Selected results are then compared with those of full MCNPX simulations.