• N. Dhanaraj, S. Barbanotti, J.S. Brandt, H. Carter, M.H. Foley, J. Grimm, T.N. Khabiboulline, R. Wands
  Fermilab, Batavia

Fermilab is currently focusing its efforts toward the development of Stainless Steel (SS) helium vessels for its 1.3 GHz SRF cavities. The objective is to transition towards the concept of using SS helium vessels to dress the bare SRF cavities, thereby paving way for significant cost reduction and efficient production techniques for future accelerators. The biggest challenge has been to design a reliable interface between the niobium cavity end group and the stainless steel end flange that encloses the helium vessel. Fermilab has been pursuing a brazed joint design to allow this transition. Additional design challenges associated with this transition are ensuring proper cooling of the cavity, compensating for the difference in thermal contraction between the SS helium vessel and niobium cavities, and also modification of the tuning procedure and ensuring the safety and reliability of the blade and piezo tuners. Current efforts on the qualification of the niobium-SS braze joint, finite element simulations of the thermal design aspects, bench testing of actual cavity displacements, and study of the effects on the tuners will be presented.