Very high pulse-energy accelerators

Conference · Sun Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1989

OSTI ID:6178658

Ramirez, J J

The dominant trend in the development of pulsed power accelerator technology over the last decade has been towards higher power and shorter pulse widths. Limitations in high voltage, high current switch performance, and in power flow through vacuum insulator housings led to the development of highly modular designs. This modular approach requires precise synchronization of the various modules and efficient methods of combining the power from these modules to drive a common load. The need to drive very low impedance loads led to effective ways to combine these modules in parallel. The PBFA I and Saturn are representative of these designs. The PBFA-II Li/sup +/ ion diode requires a higher voltage than provided by previous systems. The modules of this accelerator are arranged in stacked layers. Modules feeding each layer are added in parallel at a vacuum insulator housing and the outputs from several layers are then added in series by a self-magnetically insulated vacuum transmission line (MITL) to generate a 10 MV to 15 MV output pulse. Hermes III represents a new approach towards the efficient generation of higher voltages. It is designed to drive a 22-MV, 730-kA, 40-ns electron beam diode and combines conventional, modular pulsed power technology with linear induction accelerator concepts. High-power induction accelerator cavities are combined with voltage addition along a MITL to generate the desired output. This design differs from a conventional linac in that the voltages are added by the MITL flow rather than by a drifting beam that gains kinetic energy at each stage. This design is a major extrapolation of previous state-of-the-art technology represented by the injector module of the Advanced Test Accelerator and has proven to be efficient and reliable. The design and performance of Hermes III are presented together with a discussion of the application of this technology to the light ion beam inertial confinement fusion program. 18 refs., 12 figs.

• Research Organization: Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: AC04-76DP00789
• OSTI ID: 6178658
• Report Number(s): SAND-88-2770C; CONF-890335-42; ON: DE89008824
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
700208* -- Fusion Power Plant Technology-- Inertial Confinement Technology
ACCELERATORS
CONFINEMENT
DESIGN
ELECTRON BEAM FUSION ACCELERATOR
ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT
EQUIPMENT
FUNCTION GENERATORS
HIGH-VOLTAGE PULSE GENERATORS
ICF DEVICES
INERTIAL CONFINEMENT
PARTICLE BEAM FUSION ACCELERATOR
PERFORMANCE
PLASMA CONFINEMENT
PULSE GENERATORS
THERMONUCLEAR DEVICES