Availability and reliability statistics at ISIS and at other high-power proton accelerators

J.W.G Thomason,S.A Fisher,D.J Adams,M.G Glover,J Ranner,D.J.S Findlay

doi:10.1016/j.nima.2023.168338

J.W.G Thomason, S.A Fisher + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2023.168338

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Abstract

Detailed availability statistics, and reliability statistics in terms of trip rates, between 1994 and 2021 at the ISIS Spallation Neutron Source are presented. The average of the availabilities for 121 irradiation campaigns spanning the better part of three decades is 86% with a standard deviation of 7%. Trip rates at ISIS are very similar to trip rates at high-power proton machines of different accelerator ‘architecture’ elsewhere, and altogether these trip rates can be fitted quite well over several orders of magnitude by the simple power law Ṅ=6t−0.75 where Ṅ is the number of trips per day longer than time t (t in minutes). Typical trip rates for present-day accelerator systems would appear to be too high to be suitable for acceptable operation of accelerator-driven subcritical reactor systems.

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