Microwave tubes have advanced to a near commodity status with applications in consumer products like microwave ovens to industrial processes like drying of polymers, vulcanization, emulsification, thawing and tempering and even in preservation of fruits and vegetables. High-power microwave tubes are also used extensively for communication systems and radars in both the commercial sector and for military applications. Unlike their low-power counterparts, microwave tubes with output powers of greater than 50 watts average power are costly and therefore not readily discarded or even economically replaced. At present computer-based data acquisition units using multiple electrical measurements from the operating microwave tubes are available. Although they have certain advantages, the data buffering and analysis become problematic when radar units are operated at high pulse repetition rates. This report discloses the use of acoustic emission as a much simpler nondestructive technique to monitor the performance of high-power microwave tube systems. The correlation between RF outputs and acoustic emission for high power microwave Klystron systems were investigated. Changes in pulse outputs from Klystron corresponded to changes in acoustic emission captured by AE sensors. This correlation proved the applicability of AE technology for in-situ performance monitoring of high power Klystron systems.
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