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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 163 records · Page 9
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DOE OSTI2022

Parallel Simulation of Beam Dynamics in Particle Accelerators [Slides]

LW3D was used to explore the expected CSR from an undulator-based diagnostic using a first-principles approach. It was also used for comparison with an analytic Green-function approach. LW3D was extended to model transport systems involving dipoles and quadrupoles. It was used to explore the radiation produced in a 4-dipole bunch compressor. Radiation ahead of the electron bunch at the beamline exit was shown to be associated with wavefronts produced in upstream dipoles overtaking the bunch.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Niowave Design and Analysis of a High Power Converter - FY 21

LANL provided support to Niowave Inc. on the design and analysis of the Mk. 4 and Mk. 5, 20 kW converter. The Mk. 4 converter design consisted of lead bismuth eutectic (LBE) flowing over a divider plate to create a waterfall. Niowave, with feedback from LANL, improved on the Mk.4 divider plate and “horn” region of the converter to create the Mk. 5 version of the converter.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2022

NIOWAVE Oxygen Control Status Report, July 2022

The following is a summary of the status report: Oxygen concentration in liquid metal measurement; Literature search on oxygen control in liquid metal coolant in nuclear installation; Possible oxygen control in vacuum system are getter materials and cold trap; and, Initial ideas on implementation of these two methods

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2022

EM and beam dynamics modeling of CCL with CST Studio

The 800-MeV proton linac at LANSCE consists of a drift-tube linac, which brings the beam to 100 MeV, followed by a coupled-cavity linac (CCL). Each of 44 CCL modules contain multiple tanks, and it is fed by a single 805-MHz klystron. CCL tanks are multi-cell blocks of identical re-entrant sidecoupled cavities, which are followed by drifts with magnetic quadrupole doublets. Bridge couplers – special cavities displaced from the beam axis – electromagnetically couple CCL tanks over such drifts. We have developed 3D CST models of CCL tanks of the LANSCE linac. Their electromagnetic analysis is performed using MicroWave Studio. Beam dynamics is modeled with Particle Studio for bunch trains with realistic beam distributions using the CST calculated RF fields and quadrupole magnetic fields to determine the output beam parameters.

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DOE OSTI2022

LAMP Manufacturing Survey [Slides]

The LANL Accelerator Strategy Office (ASO) requires the support of AOT-MDE to perform a trade study on the current manufacturing capabilities required to modernize the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE). The purpose of the study will be to identify and potentially minimize cost and schedule risks that could impact the LANSCE Modernization Project (LAMP).

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2022

LAMP Manufacturing Survey (Final Report)

This report presents the results of a market manufacturing survey performed for fabricating radiofrequency quadrupoles (RFQ) and Drift Tube Linear Accelerator (DTL) components needed for the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) Modernization Project (LAMP). A review on existing RFQs and DTLs with their parameters, a summary of specific capabilities needed to manufacture them, the common issues during the fabrication process, their consequences, and resolutions to these problems is presented in this report. The goal of this study is to identify potential collaborators and companies capable of manufacturing the necessary accelerator equipment, while minimizing cost and schedule risks that could impact the future modernization of the LANSCE facility.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Flow Measurements in Pressurized Helium Gas Cooling Channels

Production of metastable Technetium-99 (Tc-99m) is vital to the medical imaging community. It is a radioactive tracer that emits gamma rays as it decays and it is these gamma rays that are then detected through imaging. Tc-99m is extracted from the decay of Molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) which has a half-life of about 2-3 days. One method of generating Mo-99 is using accelerator based technology, through the irradiation of Mo-100 using an electron beam. This is part of the NNSA’s mission to produce Mo-99 commercially, within the US, without the use of highly enriched uranium (HEU) in support of nonproliferation and global security. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is working with NorthStar medical Radioisotopes (NMR) on their efforts to produce Mo-99 from the irradiation of Mo-100 targets. The NMR target consists of an Inconel window that allows the electron beam to penetrate and irradiate a stack of Mo-100 discs. The irradiation process generates large amounts of heat and requires extensive cooling of the Mo-100 targets and target housing using pressurized helium gas. Before beam on target, the design of the target stack and target housing is tested at LANL using laser based diagnostics experiments. We quantify the velocity field of the helium gas around the target housing to estimate whether the cooling provided is sufficient for the design and to validate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models. Fiber optic imaging is also developed for use during cold testing (without beam on target) as well as during irradiation, to obtain real time information on disc performance.

07 ISOTOPE AND RADIATION SOURCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Pulsed Beam Heating Analysis of Curved Inconel Window with Pressurized Helium Gas Cooling

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is working with NorthStar medical Radioisotopes (NMR) on their efforts to produce Mo-99 through the irradiation of Mo-100 using Rodotron electron accelerators. Two Rhodotron accelerators are used to irradiate a double sided target. LANL collaborates with NMR to experimentally investigate beam effects on the target which consists of two Inconel 718 windows on either side of a stack of Mo-100 discs. LANL simulates the beam heating using an induction heater.

07 ISOTOPE AND RADIATION SOURCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Modeling Codes Used for LAMP

LAMP team is planning on using multiple computer codes as tools for modeling beam dynamics, electromagnetics, and plasma environment in ion sources. Below is a description of the computer tools we have been using or planning to use in the future. Most of the codes chosen for the LAMP project are capable to model most of the beam dynamics in LAMP. A judicious choice of the appropriate code to use will be based on speed and fidelity of the modeling with faster calculations produced by simplifying some features.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Numerical Analysis and Flow Induced Vibration Studies in Pressurized Helium Gas Cooling Channels

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is working with NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes (NMR) on their efforts to produce Mo-99 from the irradiation of Mo-100 targets. The NMR target consists of an Inconel window that allows the electron beam to penetrate and irradiate a stack of Mo-100 discs. The irradiation process generates large amounts of heat and is cooled using pressurized helium gas flowing at 400 g/s. LANL provides both numerical analysis support and experimental support. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations for both 300 g/s and 400 g/s are performed on the NMR target to analyze the helium flow through the NMR system. The pressure drop, the mass flow rate through each of the disc and window channels and the force applied on the first disc are some of the quantities estimated using CFD. These results will be combined with Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) estimates of heat flux into the system from the electron beam to perform conjugate heat transfer analysis (CHT). The experiments presented in this report focus on the effect of the flow induced vibrations from helium flowing through the coolant gaps between the discs. There is concern that the flow induced vibrations may lead to excessive mass loss of the enriched Mo-100 discs, and the goal would be to mitigate the mass loss. This work presents benchtop tests of flow through a subset of the target stack which involves high speed imaging and displacement measurements used to estimate disc vibration, as well as mass loss.

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DOE OSTI2023

New signature method for identifying organic material in atmosphere and water samples

The levels of plastic contamination in the earth’s oceans have steadily increased over the past century, creating a threat to marine life and increasing climate change. Several methods have been developed over the past decade to try to determine the amount and accumulation rate of plastic impurities in the ecosystem. These methods have proven promising but suffer from long measurement times, bulky non-mobile systems, and sample degradation. We propose a smaller, faster system that employs an electron beam to examine seawater samples for polyethylene contamination levels. This process generates a full electron and photon energy spectrum analyses based on the subatomic particles generated from electron interactions. Our simulations have already been developed based on the known molecular composition of seawater and polyethylene, showing the possibility of discerning molecular plastics from microorganisms. With a system the size of a suitcase, this system would be easily deployable to remote locations around the world or installed as a monitoring system for manufacturing facilities. This concept could lead to a new methodology for the science of signatures and be applied to other biological hazard investigations, such as general virus detection.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2023

X-Ray Development Photos April 2023

The follow three slides are pictures from the deployment of the UCSB x-ray detectors across the DTL tanks. Pictures were taken at the beginning of April.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Preliminary Design of a LAMP DTL

A preliminary Drift Tube Linac (DTL) layout was designed to create an algorithm for developing the conceptual design of the proposed LANSCE Accelerator Modernization Project (LAMP) final section: the proton linear accelerator from 3 MeV to 100 MeV. Preceding reports describe the proposed layouts of the LEBT, the RFQ, and the MEBT subsections of the linac. Initial estimates of the needed RF power for the DTL are also presented in the report. Present report describes the initial layout of the DTL and the first longitudinal beam dynamics results of the simulations n simplified models. The follow-up reports will include the transverse focusing scheme and beam dynamics in details. Present report in the last section will only describe the planned focusing scheme, based on the existing LANCE DTL.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Charge per Micro-Pulse Calculation for Ideal Lujan and WNR beams

A complete redesign of the LANSCE front-end is currently under development for the Los Alamos Modernization Project (LAMP). This includes the replacement of the traditional Cockroft-Walton injection system to the newer radiofrequency quadrupole (RFQ) standard. LANSCE accelerates both H- and H+ beams and therefore requires an unconventional application for RFQ systems. A new facility could consider using an independent RFQ for each beam species. However, with the tight space of the LANSCE injector facility, it would prove difficult to instrument. Our initial studies have shown that a single RFQ could be used. The negatively- and positively-charged direct current (DC) beams are shaped, bunched, and accelerated out of phase to each other, with very little interaction. This would work for all possible H+ beam gates and most H- Beam gates. However, a challenge arises with the Weapons Neutron Research (WNR) beam structure that requires the acceleration of bunched beams at higher charge density per pulse. The Long Bunch Enable Gate (LBEG) used for the Lujan center is the best example of a standard injector beam gate. The beam gate, or Macro-Pulse (MP), is 625-us long, separated by at least 8.3 ms. A chopper is used to dice the MP into 1750 mini-Pulses (mP), which are 290-ns wide. After chopping, the MP contains 100,000 micro-Pulses (uP), which are generated by the linac acceleration structure modulated at 201.25 MHz; that is, the micro-Pulses are separated 5 ns apart from each other. The H+ beam structure will be very similar once a chopper is added to its transport. However, the Multi-Pulse Enable Gate (MPEG) used for WNR is significantly different in structure. In this case, the mP is chopped to be only 35-ns wide. This width is then rotated into a single 201.25 MHz RF bucket using the Low Frequency Buncher (LFB). This is proving difficult for the RFQ design in the LAMP upgrade. We began investigating the amount of current sent to WNR for two reasons. Firstly, we wanted to find a solution to avoid using the Low Frequency Buncher to simplify the LAMP RFQ design. It is simple to inject and accelerate a 35 mA DC beam in the LAMP RFQ (this is done in numerous accelerator facilities). However, injecting a short bunch with a larger current (once compressed to 5 ns to meet the RFQ frequency) may be difficult. Second, we have a technique called PSR2WNR in which we do not employ the Low Frequency Buncher, but rather accumulate 5 LBEG uP (5 ns) in the PSR and deliver the accumulated beam to WNR every 1.8 us. As a result, we could provide to WNR with five accumulated LBEG uPs every shot. The goal here is to create a rapid kicker with a frequency response of 555 kHz. DARHT-II and other accelerator facilities have constructed kickers of this type for other uses, and our engineers consider this technology as feasible.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Dual Triggered Beam Extraction Kicker (Rev. 1)

A Blumlein modulator is a relatively inexpensive pulsed power device that can deliver highly repeatable pulses that can be used to change the path of beam pulses. The modulator is primarily built with transmission line cable which is relatively inexpensive. Due to the highly repeatable nature of a Blumlein modulator it is a great tool for kicking beam pulses while producing very little spill or losses in beam current. One of the challenges with a Blumlein kicker is that the length of the kicking pulse output by the modulator is determined by the length of the cables. Cable lengths are set prior to implementation for the desired kicking pulse width. The Blumlein modulator at LANSCE uses a single thyratron which can deliver two 50-kilovolt 1,000-amp pulses of opposite polarity to kicking plates at the same time. This method makes for a very strong kick that is highly repeatable. A method that has been discussed, to deliver a different pulse width, is to add a second trigger that would be fired, once the desired pulse width has been delivered, cutting out the remaining pulse. The second trigger would offer a lot of variability with the pulse width of the kicker. This method has only ever been attempted using low current and relatively low voltages compared to the scale needed to properly kick a beam pulse. This in turn allows for the use of power supplies with a higher repetition rate. The advancement of this standard kicker technology in the accelerator facilities would attract attention within the scientific and engineering communities. The project detailed within will investigate the capabilities of different triggering topologies and design a prototype dual triggered Blumlein kicker modulator capable of variable kicking pulse width.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Preliminary Design of a LAMP DTL (Update)

Present report is a continuation of the previously published report LA-UR-23-26600 from 19-Jun-2023 and incorporates the mentioned report as its part. All the additional information is contained in the part III of this report, the DTL Transverse Focusing Scheme. A preliminary Drift Tube Linac (DTL) layout was designed to create an algorithm for developing the conceptual design of the proposed LANSCE Accelerator Modernization Project (LAMP) final section: the proton linear accelerator from 3 MeV to 100 MeV. Preceding reports describe the proposed layouts of the LEBT, the RFQ, and the MEBT subsections of the linac. Initial estimates of the needed RF power for the DTL are also presented in the report. Present report describes the initial layout of the DTL and the first longitudinal beam dynamics (BD) results of the simulations in simplified models. The part III of this report includes the transverse focusing scheme and transverse BD in details.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗