Some Specialized Radiological Safety Considerations at Argonne National Laboratory's Heavy Ion Research Facility (SAR, Shielding Design, Q.f.'s HIRC)

Abstract

An existing accelerator system at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) has been upgraded and is being extended to provide heavy ions with energies well above the nuclear binding energies (5-25 MeV/A). The final configuration of the system, called the Argonne Tandem-LINAC Accelerator System (ATLAS), is to become a user-oriented national facility for nuclear physics research. ATLAS will produce some specialized radiological safety considerations unique to this facility in addition to the safety considerations normally addressed at accelerators. The ATLAS Facility shares the Physics Building with six other smaller accelerators, offices, and general purpose laboratories, some of which are used for low-level counting of radioactivity. The portions of ATLAS that currently exist and those portions that are under construction are shown. The FN-Tandem has been operational since the mid 60's. Currently, two ion source injection systems are housed within the Tandem vault. Target Area I has been in use for many years and continues to be used for beams from the Tandem. The booster LINAC exists now and currently delivers beam into target area II. The booster LINAC consists of 24 independently-phased superconducting split-ring resonators housed in four cryostats. Each superconducting split-ring resonator can have up to 1.5 MV potential between themore » drift tubes. A new beam enclosure, to house an additional 18 resonators in 3 cryostats, and a new target area III are under construction. From the distribution of charge states created by the strippers located before the 40/sup 0/ bend, it is anticipated that beams will be delivered to target areas II and III simultaneously. The maximum projectile energy for each of the three target areas is shown as a function of projectile mass.« less