High Power Test Research Articles

Additive Manufacturing of an IH-Type Linac Structure from Stainless Steel and Pure Copper

Additive manufacturing (AM) of metals has the potential to provide significant benefits for the construction of future particle accelerators. The combination of low cost manufacturing of complex geometries in combination with efficiency gains from improved linac design enabled by AM may be one way towards future cost-effective green accelerator facilities. As a proof of concept, we present a high-efficiency Zeff=280 MΩ/m, 433.632 MHz IH-DTL cavity based on an AM design. In this case, the complex internal drift tube structures with internal cooling channels have been produced from 1.4404 stainless steel and from pure copper using AM. The prototype cavity, as well as stainless steel AM parts have been electroplated with copper. We present results from successful vacuum tests, low level RF measurements of the cavity, as well as the status of preparations for high-power RF tests with a 30 kW pulsed power amplifier.

CFD investigation of a fast-response humidifier for high-power PEMFC test stations

Unlike operating PEMFC systems with internal humidification from hydrogen recirculation, fuel cell stack test stations mainly rely on external humidification. Response time in the order of 10s and power over 100 kW are crucial requirements for test stations for vehicle fuel cell stacks. In the present study, a 3D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of a swirl spray humidifier is developed to simulate the conjugated heat and mass transfer in such a humidifier. In the model, hot, dry air enters from the bottom portion of the humidifier tangentially and mixes with liquid droplets from a nozzle placed near the middle. A discrete phase model (DPM) is employed to model the atomized droplets. Time variations of the flow structure and humidity distribution are studied. A parametric study with the nozzle parameters on humidifier performance is carried out, showing that optimal humidifier performance can be obtained with a single nozzle and spray temperature at 300 K. The humidity response at the humidifier exit subject to a load change is investigated. The simulation results show that the humidifier's dynamic response time for the baseline case is about 32s, with a steady relative humidity of 95.25% and an evaporation rate of 98.4% at the exit. The present model can guide the future design of fast-response, high-power humidifiers for fuel cell stack test stations.

Integrated simulation of U-10Mo monolithic fuel swelling behavior

A separate computational branch has been implemented within the DART (Dispersion Analysis Research Tool) computational code to simulate the swelling behavior of U-10Mo monolithic fuel under the operating conditions of high-power research and test reactors (RTRs). The monolithic branch of the DART code implements a mechanistic rate-theory-based fission-gas-behavior model for the calculation of fission gas swelling, as well as a suite of thermal, physical, and mechanical models to consider various processes occurring in RTR fuels during irradiation. To accurately simulate and eventually predict U-10Mo monolithic fuel irradiation behavior, the code uses materials properties calculated with lower length-scale computational methods, such as gas atom diffusivity and U-Mo surface energy from atomic simulations and grain-morphology-specific recrystallization kinetics (recrystallized fuel volume fractions versus fission density) predicted using the phase-field method. The remainder of the fission gas behavior parameters used in the model were calibrated with measured intergranular bubble size distributions. With this integrated simulation approach, the swelling behavior of U-10Mo monolithic fuel was simulated for various initial grain sizes at different operating conditions and compared with measured data. Furthermore, because limited experimental data exist for parameter calibration, detailed sensitivity studies for the important parameters used in the fission gas behavior model were performed to examine their impact on both intergranular gas bubble morphology at low fission density, and on total porosity at high fission density.

Research of aluminum nitride water load for the 4.6 GHz 500 kW LHCD system of the CFETR

To meet the increasing heating needs of the China Fusion Experimental Tokamak Reactor (CFETR), the output power in each Lower Hybrid Current Drive (LHCD) transmission line should be increased from 250 kW to 500 kW. Therefore, a new high-power water load must be developed for the 4.6 GHz 500 kW LHCD system. This paper aims to report the most recent research progress of the water load: aluminum nitride (AlN) ceramic is used as the media material to isolate the water and vacuum, and the radio frequency (RF) simulation results show that the return loss of the water load is less than −25dB at 4.6 GHz over a wide temperature range. Under 500 kW continuous wave (CW) operation, the maximum temperatures of the ceramic and water are separately 67 °C and 62 °C, resulting in thermal deformation of the ceramic of approximately 0.003 mm. Moreover, the AlN water load was tested on the 4.6 GHz 250 kW high-power test bench and found to work well with low reflected power.

Optimization of Automatic Control and Measurement for the HEPS Large-Scale High-Power RF Conditioning Test

High power radio frequency (RF) conditioning is a key step for the RF components to gain full performance. In the construction of high energy photon source (HEPS), upgrading Beijing Electron-Positron Collider (BEPCII), preresearch of circular electron positron collider (CEPC), and other projects at Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP), there will be a lot of RF conditioning tasks within a very tight schedule. To improve the conditioning efficiency, an optimized automatic control has been developed. The automatic control system is developed based on the Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System (EPICS). The control hardware platform adopts a combination of the Micro Telecom Computing Architecture (MTCA) based low-level control and programmable logic controller (PLC) interlocking unit, which integrates a variety of measurements to ensure safe and reliable unattended operations during high-power (up to 160 MW) and high gradient (up to 33 MV/m) testing. The finite state transfer based on multiple event-triggered interrupt processes is used to improve conditioning efficiency. Taking the conditioning of the HEPS 3-m-long acceleration structure as an example, the breakdown rate (BDR) at high power is less than one out of 180 000 pulses. The time consumed for each accelerating structure is reduced by a factor of nearly 2/3. Experiments show that the system realizes the unattended operation of whole process, and improves conditioning efficiency.

Design and verification of a high-gradient and high-power 2nd harmonic cavity for the China Spallation Neutron Source upgrade project

Here, we report our recent progress in the design, fluid thermodynamics simulation, and high-power test of the2nd harmonic cavity for the China Spallation Neutron Source Phase II. A high-performance and large-size magnetic alloy (MA) core was developed as the load material for the radiofrequency cavity to achieve a high gradient of 40 kV/m. The water-cooling structure and cooling efficiency were studied and improved through numerical analysis and thermal experiments. The long-term stability of the cavity, especially the waterproofness of the MA cores with high heat load, was verified by high power tests.

Fission gas retention of densely packed uranium carbonitride tristructural-isotropic fuel particles in a 3D printed SiC matrix

The Transformational Challenge Reactor (TCR) fuel form was designed to contain large, densely packed uranium carbonitride (UCN) tristructural-isotropic (TRISO) fuel particles within a 3D printed SiC matrix, increasing the uranium density compared to conventional TRISO fuel forms and offering full geometric freedom for core design. This work summarizes initial low-burnup, high-power irradiation testing of TCR fuel materials, including loose UCN TRISO particles and integral fuel compacts with ∼55% TRISO particles by volume, to evaluate fission gas retention. Fission gasses were fully retained in all loose particle tests and in integral compacts irradiated at low (<250 °C) surface temperatures. Initial testing at higher (∼700–750 °C) fuel surface temperatures showed fission gas release (FGR) and complete fracture of three compacts, but no FGR was observed in later high temperature tests (∼300–750 °C) of both fueled compacts and loose TRISO particles. Calculated thermal stresses in the failed compacts were far less than the measured strength of the SiC matrix and the stresses in some failed compacts were less than those in compacts that did not show FGR. Thermal stress-induced matrix cracks also would not cause complete fracture because the tensile stresses transition to compression in the higher temperature regions. Therefore, fuel failure was likely not caused by thermal stresses and may have been related to leakage currents from the electrical heaters and erratic fuel surface temperatures that were only observed in the test for which failure was observed. In any case, the matrix cracks propagated through the coatings of TRISO particles located in the high-density matrix regions on the peripheries of the compacts, resulting in measurable fission gas release. The discussion focuses on the importance of understanding matrix density distributions and the particle-matrix interface properties to prevent matrix cracks from causing TRISO particle failures.

Fabrication of THz corrugated wakefield structure and its high power test

We present overall process for developing terahertz (THz) corrugated structure and its beam-based measurement results. 0.2-THz corrugated structures were fabricated by die stamping method as the first step demonstration towards GW THz radiation source and GV/m THz wakefield accelerator. 150-upmum thick disks were produced from an OFHC (C10100) foil by stamping. Two types of disks were stacked alternately to form 46 mm structure with sim 170 corrugations. Custom assembly was designed to provide diffusion bonding with a high precision alignment of disks. The compliance of the fabricated structure have been verified through beam-based wakefield measurement at Argonne Wakefield Accelerator Facility. Both measured longitudinal and transverse wakefield showed good agreement with simulated wakefields. Measured peak gradients, 9.4 MV/m/nC for a long single bunch and 35.4 MV/m/nC for a four bunch trains, showed good agreement with the simulation.

Reconfigurable SAW Resonators and Tunable Filters Using Monolithically Integrated VO₂ Switches

This article presents novel reconfigurable surface acoustic wave (SAW) resonators using switching elements based on vanadium oxide (VO2) phase change material. The switching elements are integrated monolithically with the resonators on the same chip using an in-house fabrication process, which allows the compact implementation of the proposed reconfigurable resonators. The frequency of the resonator is tuned between two different states by changing the configuration of interdigitated electrodes within the SAW resonator and by using a set of tuning electrodes and VO2 switches. Experimental results are presented for the first reconfigurable resonator with six VO2 switching elements. The resonator is tuned from 700 to 720 MHz, while the quality factor is maintained above 350 over the tuning range. A second reconfigurable resonator with a modified structure is proposed to reduce the number of required VO2 switching elements for an even more compact implementation and reduction in the required dc power consumption. The second reconfigurable resonator based on a single VO2 switching element has a tuning range from 712 to 730 MHz and a quality factor better than 514. Design, implementation, and measurement results for tunable filters based on the proposed frequency tuning method are presented. A proof-of-concept six-pole tunable filter shows center frequency tuning from 944 to 971 MHz with a 36-MHz bandwidth and an insertion loss better than 3.6 dB over the tuning range. Another three-pole filter is implemented using the proposed reconfigurable resonators with monolithically integrated VO2 switches. The filter demonstrates a measured center frequency of 713 and 733 MHz for the low and high channels, respectively, while the insertion loss is better than 2.5 dB. High power and nonlinear test results are presented for both the reconfigurable resonators and filters. The monolithic integration of the VO2 switches with SAW resonators allows the practical implementation of higher order tunable SAW filters for wireless applications without any major performance degradation or increase in the size of the filter.

A Self-Tuning LCC/LCC System Based on Switch-Controlled Capacitors for Constant-Power Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging

In this article, a self-tuning <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">LCC/LCC</i> wireless power transfer system based on switch-controlled capacitors is proposed to maintain a high power factor on the primary inverter side and fixed output power on the secondary side against self or mutual inductance variation of the magnetic coupler. The PI control on the primary side and the method of gradient descent on the secondary side are proposed based on the proposed normalized mistuned <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">LCC/LCC</i> circuit model. Only two switch-controlled capacitors on each primary and secondary side are used to implement the control scheme without the Wi-Fi communication or parameter identification. A 3 kW experiment setup was built in the lab and two different magnetic shields, namely ferrite and nanocrystalline, were tested on the secondary pad. According to the experiment results, the proposed system is proven to be able to maintain a high power factor (>0.9) and the desired dc output power against 52% mutual inductance variation and 12% self-inductance variation of the secondary pad. The proposed system can be applied as a wireless charger for electric vehicles or a high-power wireless charger test bench.

High power mm-wave loss measurements of ITER ex-vessel waveguide components at the FALCON test facility at the Swiss Plasma Center

Many future fusion devices will rely heavily, if not solely, on electron cyclotron (EC) heating subsystems to provide bulk heating, instability control (neoclassical tearing mode (NTM) stabilization), and thermal instability control. Efficient use of the installed heating power (gyrotrons) requires low-loss transmission of the power over 100s of meters since the mm-wave sources need to be installed where the stray magnetic field has a small amplitude. Transmission lines are used to propagate the mm-wave power over this long distance. Quasi-optical techniques (mirrors) are used at W7X and are planned for DTT, for example. Guided components are installed at DIII-D, TCV and elsewhere and are planned at JT60SA and ITER. High power test facilities exist to evaluate the power transmission of assemblies of guided components (transmission lines). The European test facility FALCON was setup by Switzerland and Fusion for Energy (F4E) in Lausanne Switzerland at the Swiss Plasma Center (SPC) in the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). Operations are funded through a framework contract with F4E. SPC operates the facility. Two ITER-class 170GHz gyrotrons are housed within the facility and used to evaluate the thermal behaviour of components provided by various ITER partners. Loss measurements are presented for miter bends and waveguides of several materials at two different diameters. The results are used to model the expected losses in the ITER ex-vessel waveguides (EW) of all five EC launchers.

High-Power Test of Two Prototype X-Band Accelerating Structures Based on SwissFEL Fabrication Technology

This article presents the design, construction, and high-power test of two <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$X$ </tex-math></inline-formula> -band radio frequency (RF) accelerating structures built as part of a collaboration between CERN and the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) for the compact linear collider (CLIC) study. The structures are a modified “tuning-free” variant of an existing CERN design and were assembled using Swiss free electron laser (SwissFEL) production methods. The purpose of the study is two-fold. The first objective is to validate the RF properties and high-power performance of the tuning-free, vacuum brazed PSI technology. The second objective is to study the structures’ high-gradient behavior to provide insight into the breakdown and conditioning phenomena as they apply to high-field devices in general. Low-power RF measurements showed that the structure field profiles were close to the design values, and both structures were conditioned to accelerating gradients in excess of 100 MV/m in CERN’s high-gradient test facility. Measurements performed during the second structure test suggest that the breakdown rate (BDR) scales strongly with the accelerating gradient, with the best fit being a power law relation with an exponent of 31.14. In both cases, the test results indicate that stable, high-gradient operation is possible with tuning-free, vacuum brazed structures of this kind.

Uncertainty Budget in Microwave High-Power Testing

Uncertainty Budget in Microwave High-Power Testing

X -band two-stage rf pulse compression system with correction cavity chain

A compact $X$-band two-stage rf pulse compression system has been successfully designed, fabricated, and tested at Tsinghua $X$-band high-power test stand. The pulse compression system consists of a correction cavity chain, a first-stage, and a second-stage storage cavity. The correction cavity chain adopts a new design whose transmission loss and length are reduced by half compared with the old one. A detuning device is applied to the second-stage storage cavity so that the system can work in one-stage or alternatively two-stage compression mode. In the one-stage compression mode, a 150-ns, 70-MW flattop output, with a standard deviation of 1.5% in amplitude and 1\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{} in phase, was generated with a gain factor of 3. In the two-stage compression mode, a first two-stage pulse compression experiment with correction cavities in the $X$ band was performed. A peak power of 320 MW was achieved with a gain factor of 9.7 and full-width at half-maximum pulse durations of 53 ns.

An improved LED junction temperature test method based on FCM

High junction temperature (Tj) of LED will affect the performance and life of LED, so this paper proposes a high-power LED junction temperature test method. Mainly aiming at the problem that the accuracy of the forward current method (FCM) will be affected by the calibration procedure, equipment aging, and technical differences when batch testing LED Tj, this paper uses the relationship between relative current and Tj to calibrate the procedure based on this method, to limit the negative affection of sample heterogeneity. Ten LED samples were tested in the experiment, and the Tj errors under two test methods were obtained. The results showed that the improved method was more accurate than the traditional method. Then, the Tj error of the improved method was compared with that of the forward voltage method, and the error of the new method was smaller.

High-power test of an interdigital H -mode drift tube linac for the J-PARC muon g−2 and electric dipole moment experiment

We conducted a high-power test of a prototype cavity of a 324-MHz interdigital H-mode drift tube linac (IH-DTL) for the precise measurement of the muon anomalous magnetic moment ($g\ensuremath{-}2$) and electric dipole moment (EDM). This prototype cavity (short IH) was developed to verify the fabrication methodology for the IH-DTL cavity with a monolithic drift tube structure. The electromagnetic field distribution was measured and compared with the finite element method simulation results, and the fabrication accuracy of the monolithic drift tube was confirmed to satisfy the requirements. After 40 h of conditioning, the short IH was stably operated with an rf power of 88 kW, which corresponds to a 10% higher accelerating field than the design field (${E}_{0}$) of $3.0\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{MV}/\mathrm{m}$. In addition, the thermal characteristics and frequency response were measured, verifying that the experimental data were consistent with the three-dimensional model. In this paper, the design, fabrication, and low-power and high-power tests of this IH-DTL for muon acceleration are described.

Compact and efficient radio frequency digital feedback control system for accelerator applications

The digital feedback (DFB) setup employed in a low-level radio frequency (LLRF) control system is crucial to ensure RF field stability in accelerating cavities, thus guaranteeing successful operation. To this end, a novel in-house and multi-purpose prototype DFB setup was developed for multiple applications at the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC). Being efficient, low-cost, and compact is key to achieving a cost-effective system that fulfills the performance specifications. It also reduces the production and maintenance costs of future DFB setups. A field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-based design with a digital signal processing (DSP) function uses an analog in-phase/quadrature-phase (I/Q) demodulator for RF-to-baseband signal conversion and an I/Q modulator to generate RF power. This arrangement compensates for RF phase fluctuations and amplitude modulations by employing a proportional and integral (PI) feedback controller. In addition, systematic errors are minimized by applying a hardware-error-compensation process. The system was utilized to conduct high-power tests on the interdigital H-mode drift-tube linac (IH-DTL) cavity of a muon linac for short RF pulses. The setup was also tested on a buncher cavity (Buncher-2) in the J-PARC linac, achieving efficient performance for longer RF pulses. The stability of the RF accelerating field in the IH-DTL was achieved at ±0.25% peak-to-peak (pp) in amplitude and ±0.36 degree pp in phase. For the Buncher-2, the amplitude stability of ±0.18% pp and phase stability of ±0.13 degree pp were obtained. Therefore, this DFB setup can be used to conduct high-power tests of RF cavities and klystrons. This study discusses the design aspects of a cost-effective DFB system and reports high-power measurements.

Modern Methods of Construction Problem Solving in Designing Various Types of Instrument Transformers

Current and voltage instrument transformers are essential elements of the power system. They work like transformers but do not transmit power. Their task is to accurately transform currents or voltages during system operation, which are then used for measurement and protection. These devices are very precise, and their accuracy is defined by the IEC/CEN standards. Instrument transformers are located at all transformer stations, specialized high-voltage and high-power laboratories, and testing and teaching laboratories. Therefore, the design requirements are very different depending on their type (current, voltage, or combined), function (measuring, protection), and operating voltage (high, medium, and low). The requirements concern not only the operation but also the strength of the insulation system and, sometimes, the mechanical strength.

High power test of the power coupler for 325 MHz superconducting cavities with standing waves

The fabricated power coupler is a coaxial capacitive-type coupler based on a conventional 3 1/8-inch Electronic Industries Alliance 50-Ω coaxial transmission line with a titanium nitride (TiN)-coated ceramic disk window. A high-power test in a standing wave was performed with the 20 kW and 325 MHz solid-state power amplifier (SSPA). The standing wave test is similar to the RF conditioning condition of the cavity before beam operation. It is also possible to adjust the position of the maximum power applied to the power coupler. Two power couplers were connected to a rectangular test cavity with a high vacuum and various measuring equipment, such as an arc detector, a power meter, a temperature sensor, and an electron pick-up probe. The interlock system under vacuum and arc instrumentation prevented the RF window from breaking the power coupler window during the high-power test. The interlock system was operated when the temperature, arc discharge, and electron emission were measured and exceeded the threshold. We conducted high-power tests at 3 kW in a standing wave to verify the performance of the fabricated power coupler. In this paper, we present the results of the high-power test with standing waves using movable shorts.

Interconnecting Power-Electronic Buck Converter Modules in a Novel High-Power Test Bench for MVDC Circuit Breakers

Advances in medium voltage direct current (MVDC) technologies and the penetration of extended MVDC systems are still significantly hindered by the lack of adequate direct current (DC) switching equipment. The fundamentally different fault current behavior in case of a DC fault, compared to faults in alternating current (AC) systems, with regard to the characteristics and development of fault currents and their interruption make dedicated test procedures necessary. One testing approach is the application of a power-electronic buck converter (PEBC) to simulate relevant stresses on DC switching equipment during a DC fault current interruption. Since the associated requirements, especially regarding current ratings of several kiloamperes, cannot be fulfilled by using a singular PEBC, a modularization becomes necessary. However, particularly in high-power applications, the interconnection of several PEBC modules poses significant challenges. In this article, a demonstrator PEBC-based high-power test circuit for the provision of relevant testing parameters is presented. The underlying challenges and respective solutions with regard to the interconnection of, in total, 120 individual PEBC modules are discussed. It can be shown that the harmonization of connection busbar inductances is the main contributor towards a stable and safe test circuit operation.