Mechanical features of a 700 MHz bridge-coupled drift tube linac

摘要

Modern linac designs for treating radioactive waste achieve high proton currents through funneling at low energy, typically around 20 MeV. The resulting switch to a high-frequency accelerating structure poses severe performance and fabrication difficulties below 100 MeV. Above 100 MeV, proven coupled-cavity linacs (CCLS) are available. However, at 20 MeV one must choose between a high-frequency drift-tube linac (DTL) or a coupled-cavity linac with very short cells. Potential radiation damage from the CW beam, excessive RF power losses, multipactoring, and fabricability all enter into this decision. At Los Alamos, we have developed designs for a bridge-coupled DTL (BCDTL) that, like a CCL, uses lattice focusing elements and bridge couplers, but that unlike a CCL, accelerates the beam in simple, short, large-aperture DTL modules with no internal quadrupole focusing. Thus, the BCDTL consumes less power than the CCL linac without beam performance and is simpler and cheaper to fabricate in the 20 to 100 MeV range.