Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator Research Articles

Measurements of momentum halo due to the reduced RFQ voltage during the LIPAc beam commissioning

The Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator, LIPAc, is being commissioned aiming at validating the RFQ up to 5 MeV beam acceleration. Eventually, the nominal beam of 5 MeV–125 mA in 1 ms length and 1 Hz rate pulsed mode was achieved in 2019. The beam operation has been resumed since July 2023 after a long maintenance including recovery from unexpected problems in the RFQ-RF system. This new phase aims at the commissioning of the full configuration except SRF LINAC, which is replaced by a temporary beam transport line. Focusing on the RFQ behavior, it will be interesting to operate it at higher duty, especially for longer pulses. Furthermore, a beam simulation study suggested that the beam extracted from the RFQ includes considerable momentum halo when the vane voltage reduces by more than 5 %, with a slight decrease of the mean energy. It can be a potential source of a quench like the mismatched beam in the cryomodule. This could be studied by measuring the energy from the Time-of-Flight among multiple BPMs while monitoring beam loss around the dipole, where momentum halo should be lost. During the beam commissioning phase, we studied them by scanning the RFQ voltage.

RF conditioning towards continuous wave of the RFQ of the Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator

The Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator (LIPAc) is designed to accelerate 125mA of deuteron beam to 9MeV in continuous wave (CW). The superconductive RF Linac has not yet been installed and the final accelerating stage now under commissioning is the RFQ. This system has been designed and developed by INFN (Italy) before installation in QST (Japan). The RFQ is the longest in the World with its 9.8m and requires RF power injection from 8 independent and synchronized coupler ports. LIPAc demonstrated the acceleration of 125mA deuteron beam at 5MeV for 1ms with a 1s repetition period in 2019. A fundamental milestone to extend beam operations to CW is the completion of the RFQ cavity RF conditioning up to CW. This work presents the strategy followed to successfully reach CW RF injection at 80% of the nominal 132kV vane voltage. The field distribution correction scheme (acting on cooling system at various power levels) was successfully verified. We discuss as well the main challenges encountered on the way, which include updates of the RF system, failure of a circulator (by arcs) and the damages occurred on some of the RF couplers. Finally, the recent status and outlook will be provided.

Neutron production measurement in the 125 mA 5 MeV deuteron beam commissioning of Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator (LIPAc) RFQ

The validation of the Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator (LIPAc) is being conducted in Rokkasho Fusion Institute of QST, Aomori, Japan. The beam commissioning of the novel LIPAc RFQ has been progressing significantly, and the acceleration of the world highest current deuteron beam of 125 mA to 5 MeV (1 ms, 1 Hz pulsed beam) was achieved for the 1st time in July 2019. This study is devoted to evaluating the amount of beam loss during the high current acceleration phase by measuring the neutron produced by the interaction of the beam with accelerator components so as to verify the accelerator design. The foil activation method and the 3He neutron probes were utilized. It turned out that there was no significant trace of unexpected beam loss at the high energy section of the RFQ and the medium energy beam transport (MEBT) section. The measurement using the 3He neutron probes provided an evidence that the beam loss was well controlled in the RFQ cavity as designed. This study concludes that the LIPAc RFQ as well as MEBT is working well as predicted by the design calculation, and its concept is successful.

Functional Overview of the RF Power System for the LIPAc RFQ

Design, development, manufacturing, and test activities of the RF power system (RFPS) for Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator (LIPAc) were completed in Europe. Installation and commissioning activities were carried out at the International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility-Engineering Validation and Engineering Design Activities (IFMIF/EVEDA) site in Rokkasho, Japan. Challenging IFMIF requirements led to a number of innovations during design and development. Commissioning required a major effort on calibration and fine setting and led to development of new functionalities. The RFPS was validated under full power and 125-mA deuteron beam loading conditions, in the radio frequency quadrupole (RFQ), demonstrating good performance. This article is an overview about how technical challenges impacted the prototype RFPS design and its functional evolution during commissioning, cavity conditioning, and beam operation of the RFQ.

Status and future developments of the Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator (LIPAc)

LIPAc is the Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator developed within the framework of the IFMIF project under the Broader Approach (BA) agreement signed between EURATOM and the Japanese Government in 2007. The IFMIF accelerator aims to provide an accelerator-based D-Li neutron source to produce high intensity neutron fluxes with appropriate energy spectrum in order to characterize materials envisioned for future fusion reactors. Because the IFMIF accelerator has to reach unprecedented performances, the feasibility is being tested through the design, manufacturing, installation, commissioning and testing activities of a 1:1-scale prototype accelerator, namely LIPAc, from the injector to the first cryomodule together with the High Energy Beam Transport line and the High Power Beam Dump. After outstanding results obtained in 2019, the LIPAc project has entered 2020 in the preparation of the third commissioning stage, i.e., validation in continuous-wave mode of the complete accelerator up to 5 MeV with its final beam dump. The validation until the nominal energy of 9 MeV will be made after the completion of cryomodule assembly. After a brief overview of the goals already achieved in the framework of the IFMIF/EVEDA program, this paper will present a synthesis of the results that have been obtained so far with the LIPAc accelerator as well as the future developments planned beyond 2020.

Integration of 175-MHz LIPAc RF System and RFQ Linac for Beam Commissioning

The eight-chain RF system and radio frequency quadrupole (RFQ) linac were successfully integrated at the facility of the Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator (LIPAc). We achieved an unprecedented high current deuteron beam up to 55 mA in pulse operation ( $300~\mu \text{s}$ , 1 Hz). The keys of the success were (1) understanding reflected power from RFQ to RF system, (2) tuning each RF chain individually, (3) intensive RF conditioning for holding the stable RF power in the RFQ, and (4) optimizing the beam loading compensation control. Interestingly, the reflection at the breakdown in RF conditioning was higher than an estimation and reached up to 600 kW so far. In order to avoid damage on tetrodes by the high reflection, the impedance of each circulator was accurately adjusted.

Radiation shielding requirements for the full power operation of the linear IFMIF prototype accelerator (LIPAc) at Rokkasho

The detailed shielding analysis has been performed in order to find a configuration of the radiation shielding in the accelerator building necessary for the operation of the Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator (LIPAc), which is under construction in Rokkasho, Japan, at the full power of 1.125 MW to satisfy the radiation dose limit prescribed by Japanese regulations. The final design of the beam dump constructed by CIEMAT, Spain was fully taken into consideration. The impact of all the features potentially causing neutron streaming were investigated and the optimization of local additional shieldings were conducted. As the result, the most important one was found to be the air ventilation duct shield, which completely covers the ducts and creates an additional labyrinth. By considering the additional shielding configuration determined in the present study, the legal criteria at the controlled area boundary can be completely satisfied.

Beam diagnostics of an ECR ion source on LIPAc injector for prototype IFMIF beam accelerator

The IFMIF accelerator facility consists of 2 identical linacs, each accelerating a 125 mA CW deuteron beam up to the energy of 40 MeV. In order to reach these unprecedented performances, the Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator (LIPAc) is under installation and commissioning at the International Fusion Energy Research Centre (IFERC) in Rokkasho, Japan, in the framework of the IFMIF/EVEDA project, which is part of the Broader Approach (BA) agreement between Japan and EU. The accelerator is designed to validate components up to 125 mA CW deuteron beam at 9 MeV. The accelerator components of LIPAc have been designed and manufactured mainly by European Institutes. The injector and superconducting linac, RFQ, MEBT, Diagnostics Plate, HEBT and beam dump have been developed respectively by CEA-Saclay, INFN-Legnaro and CIEMAT-Madrid and were delivered to Rokkasho between 2013 and 2016. The commissioning of the injector with beam started in November 2014. This paper dealt with the experimental data obtained with the beam diagnostics of the injector. The electrical measurements of the beam intensity on the beam stopper were compared with calorimetric measurements. The beam profiles measured with a CCD camera and a custom image-intensified CID camera are also addressed. The analysis of beam emittance and ion species fractions from data obtained with an Allison scanner is described and the results of species fraction measurements are compared with those obtained by using a deported spectrometer. Finally, the analysis of beam space potential from data obtained with a 4-Grid analyser is presented.

Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator (LIPAc): Installation activities for Phase-B beam commissioning in Rokkasho

The construction of the Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator (LIPAc) is in progress in order to demonstrate the feasibility of the low energy section of an IFMIF deuteron accelerator up to 9 MeV with a beam current of 125 mA in CW. The next milestone of the project is the so-called Phase-B beam commissioning, and one of the missions is to demonstrate the acceleration of the proton beam up to 2.5 MeV or the deuteron beam up to 5.0 MeV in pulsed mode with a low duty cycle of 0.1% through RFQ. Most of the components and subsystems necessary for Phase-B were delivered by 2016 under the responsibility of Fusion for Energy (F4E) as in-kind contributions of several European institutes, namely CEA (France), CIEMAT (Spain), INFN (Italy), and SCK-CEN (Belgium), and QST is in charge of the installation of the delivered equipment. The installation and check-out of the RFQ subsystem and the RF power system was completed by July 2017, and the RF conditioning of the RFQ cavity started. Also, the installation and the check-out of the important sub-systems for Phase-B, namely MEBT and beam diagnostics, have been completed.

Status of the RFQ linac installation and conditioning of the Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator

The Radio Frequency Quadrupole (RFQ) linac and 1.6 MW RF power system of the Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator (LIPAc) facility in the International Fusion Energy Research Center (IFERC) in Rokkasho (Japan) has been installed and conditioned. During the assembly and tuning process, the RFQ cavity was protected with a temporary tent from the potential deterioration of performance caused by dust. The vacuum in the cavity was improved through the 100 °C baking process of the cavity. The high power test of the 175 MHz RF systems up to 200 kW in CW for each of the eight RF chains was performed for checking its stable output reproducibility in Japan, before connecting 9–3/16 inch coaxial transmission lines from the RF chains to the RF input couplers of the cavity. It was confirmed that the eight RF chains provided the balanced RF power to the single RFQ cavity in-phase using a feedback loop and a synchronization system. The peak power in the cavity achieved 150 kW in the pulsed mode, which corresponds approximately to the required electric field to accelerate proton beam. Such RF conditioning process is ongoing to achieve 600 kW approximately required for deuteron beam commissioning planned in 2018.

Radiation safety study for the beam commissioning of IFMIF/EVEDA LIPAc RFQ in Rokkasho

The construction of the Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator (LIPAc) is in progress at Rokkasho, Japan. The important milestone of the project is to commission the necessary components, namely RFQ, MEBT and diagnostics, to accelerate the proton beam up to 2.5 MeV or the deuteron beam up to 5.0 MeV in pulsed mode with a low duty cycle of 0.1%. The detailed radiation safety analysis has been conducted for the beam commissioning with the consideration of the specific radiation source conditions and the building configuration. As a result, it turned out that the dose rate expected outside the accelerator vault during deuteron beam operation at 5 MeV is mostly dominated by the neutron streaming effect through three major penetration sectors, i.e. HVAC ducts, water pipe holes and underground pits, while it is negligibly small during the proton beam operation at 2.5 MeV. It was confirmed that the dose rate expected does not exceed the legal limit for the controlled area boundary and no serious radiological issues exist in the beam commissioning planned.

Development of calorimetry methodology for beam current measurement of the Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator (LIPAc)

The goal of LIPAc (Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator) is to achieve a 125mA, 9 MeV, CW (continuous wave, i.e. 100% duty cycle) deuteron beam with an average beam power of 1.125 MW. In the beam current measurement, it is considered that calorimetric measurement is advantageous for high current and CW operations since it is not subject to secondary electrons, etc. In calorimetric measurements, it is necessary to measure the temperature rise of the cooling water as accurately as possible. We applied this method to LIPAc proton beams at the Beam Stop unit. In order to check the reliability, we inserted a heater in the cooling loop as a heat source and obtained correlation between the applied and measured power, which was found to be 1.0. Moreover, using this heater, accuracy of this measurement with respect to the flow rate of the cooling water was investigated. Due to heat transfer and the fluctuations of water temperature, etc., there is a range of flow rates in which the measurement error can be minimized with our calorimetric measurement system.

Accelerometers data processing for boiling onset detection on the LIPAc beam stopper

The LIPAc (Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator) is a prototype that ends in a dump made of copper with conical shape and cooled by water moving at high speed on the outer surface.In case the beam reaches the dump with abnormal misalignment or offset, the local temperatures at the water-copper surface will give rise to boiling onset which can be used as a warning flag before an excessive thermal stress distribution could endanger the mechanical integrity of the Beam Dump.Previous experiments having the same goal were carried out with hydrophones to detect the onset of boiling [doi:10.1016/j.fusengdes.2015.01.011]. The current article deals with the treatment of the signal coming from an accelerometer.The article will go into detail of data treatment to refine the detection of the boiling onset, even if noise coming from external or undesired sources is mixed with the boiling signal, which prevents in this case the use of the RMS as a monitoring parameter.Recommendations are given for the implementation in the cooling system of the LIPAc Beam Dump to be installed in Rokkasho.

Neutron production and dose rate in the IFMIF/EVEDA LIPAc injector beam commissioning

The construction of the Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator (LIPAc) is in progress in Rokkasho, Japan, and the deuteron beam commissioning of the injector began in July 2015. Due to the huge beam current of 125mA, a large amount of d-D neutrons are produced in the commissioning. The neutron streaming effect through pipe penetrations and underground pits may dominate the radiation dose at the outside of the accelerator vault during the injector operation. In the present study the effective dose rate expected during the injector commissioning was analyzed by a Monte Carlo calculation and compared with the measured value. For the comparison it is necessary to know the total neutron production yield in the accelerator vault, thus a dedicated neutron production yield monitoring system was developed. The yield obtained was smaller than that previously reported in a literature by a factor of a few and seems to depend on some beam conditions. From the comparison it was proved that the calculation always provides a conservative estimate and the dose rates in places where occupational works can always access and the controlled area boundary are expected to be far less than the legal criteria throughout the injector commissioning.

LIPAc personnel protection system for realizing radiation licensing conditions on injector commissioning with deuteron beam

The performance validation of the Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator (LIPAc), up to the energy of 9MeV deuteron beam with 125mA continuous wave (CW), is planned in Rokkasho, Japan. There are three main phases of LIPAc performance validation: Injector commissioning, RFQ commissioning and LIPAc commissioning. Injector commissioning was started by H+ and D+ beam. To apply the radiation licensing for the Injector commissioning, the entering/leaving to/from accelerator vault should be under control, and access to the accelerator vault has to be prohibited for any person during the beam operation. The Personnel Protection System (PPS) was developed to adapt the radiation licensing conditions. The licensing requests that PPS must manage the accumulated D+ current. So, to manage the overall D+ beam time during injector operation, Pulse Duty Management System (PDMS) was developed as a configurable subsystem as part of the PPS. The PDMS was tested during H+ beam (as simulated D+) operation, to confirm that it can handle the beam inhibit from Injector before the beam accumulation is above the threshold value specified in the radiation licensing condition. In this paper, the design and configuration of these systems and the result of the tests are presented.

A catalogue of losses for a high power, high intensity accelerator

AbstractFor a Megawatt class accelerator, classical safety measures may not be sufficient. Precise knowledge of beam loss location and power deposition in the most various scenarios is crucial for the definition of appropriate protection systems. In this work, the case of the Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator is studied, where, due to its very high continuous wave beam intensity, the high power part concerns almost the whole accelerator. Beam dynamics simulations are performed to allow the ability to estimate beam losses in all the different situations of the accelerator lifetime: starting from scratch, beam commissioning, tuning or exploration, routine operation, sudden failures. All the results of these studies are given, establishing the catalogue of losses. Recommendations for hot point protection, beam stop speed, beam power limitation are given accordingly.

Activation analysis of the water cooling system of the LIPAc beam dump

LIPAc stands for Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator. LIPAc generates a 9MeV deuteron beam, which is stopped at a beam dump, depositing over 1MW of thermal power. A water cooling system has been devised for extracting this energy while keeping operational temperatures within range. The existing high neutron fluxes in the beam dump during operation produce activation of both coolant and beam stopper, which also suffers from corrosion into the coolant. The presence of radioisotopes in the cooling water leads to a radiological hazard.Water purification systems are located outside the accelerator vault and accumulate activated products during filtration, requiring a specific radiological shield to comply with target dose rates. Also devices containing large volume of activated cooling water, like N-16 decay pipes, require specific radioprotection analysis and design. This work identifies the most relevant radiation sources due to the activated cooling fluid, which may result in radiation doses to workers, and propose radioprotection measures into the design to mitigate their effect.

Engineering progress of the linear IFMIF prototype accelerator (LIPAc)

The linear IFMIF prototype accelerator (LIPAc) has been launched within the framework of the Broader Approach Agreement with the objective to validate the low energy part (9MeV) for the IFMIF linacs (40MeV, 125mA of D+ beam in continuous wave). Starting in mid-2007, the project is managed by the two Home Teams (JA-HT and EU-HT) and headed by the Project Team at the Broader Approach site in Rokkasho with the aim to complete the validation activity with the installation and commissioning of the whole LIPAc by June 2017. Following a short description and current status of each accelerator component, this paper describes the integration activities such as the 3D mockup integration and the Interface Management System (IMS) tools developed for use at the Integrated Project Team level. In preparation of the first equipment delivery in Japan at the beginning of 2013, implementation and installation activities of the various components are described, in particular assembly procedures associated with each subsystem.

Gamma-ray and neutron area monitoring system of linear IFMIF prototype accelerator building

The linear IFMIF prototype accelerator (LIPAc) produces deuteron beam with 1MW power. Since huge number of neutrons occur from such a high power beam, therefore, it is important for the radiation management to design a high reliability area monitoring system for gamma-rays and neutrons. To obtain the valuable operation data of the high-power deuteron beam at LIPAc, it is important to link and record the beam operation data and the area monitoring data. We realize the reliable data transfer to provide the area monitoring data to the accelerator control system which needs a high reliability using the shared-memory data link method.This paper describes the area monitoring system in the LIPAc building and the data-link between this system and the LIPAc control system.

EPICS based low-level radio frequency control system in LIPAc

The IFMIF–EVEDA (International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility – Engineering Validation and Engineering Design Activity) linear accelerator, known as Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator (LIPAc), will be a 9MeV, 125mA continuous wave (CW) deuteron accelerator prototype to validate the technical options of the accelerator design for IFMIF. The primary mission of such facility is to test and verify materials performance when subjected to extensive neutron irradiation of the type encountered in a fusion reactor to prepare for the design, construction, licensing and safe operation of a fusion demonstration reactor (DEMO). The radio frequency (RF) power system of IFMIF–EVEDA consists of 18 RF chains working at 175MHz with three amplification stages each. The low-level radio frequency (LLRF) controls the amplitude and phase of the signal to be synchronized with the beam and it also controls the resonance frequency of the cavities. The system is based on a commercial compact peripheral component interconnect (cPCI) field programmable gate array (FPGA) board, provided by Lyrtech and controlled by a Windows host PC. For this purpose, it is mandatory to communicate the cPCI FPGA board from EPICS Channel Access [1]. A software architecture on EPICS framework in order to control and monitor the LLRF system is presented.