The Spallation Neutron Source accelerator system design

Abstract

The Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) was designed and constructed by a collaboration of six U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories. The SNS accelerator system consists of a 1GeV linear accelerator and an accumulator ring providing 1.4MW of proton beam power in microsecond-long beam pulses to a liquid mercury target for neutron production. The accelerator complex consists of a front-end negative hydrogen-ion injector system, an 87MeV drift tube linear accelerator, a 186MeV side-coupled linear accelerator, a 1GeV superconducting linear accelerator, a 248-m circumference accumulator ring and associated beam transport lines. The accelerator complex is supported by ~100 high-power RF power systems, a 2K cryogenic plant, ~400 DC and pulsed power supply systems, ~400 beam diagnostic devices and a distributed control system handling ~100,000 I/O signals. The beam dynamics design of the SNS accelerator is presented, as is the engineering design of the major accelerator subsystems.