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Engineers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory partnered with RadiaBeam Technologies, a California-based small company that specializes in accelerator development and manufacturing. Fermilab engineers leveraged their expertise in cryomodule design and conduction cooling to help the company enter the superconducting industrial accelerator market. Some of the engineers Illinois Accelerator Research Center Known as IARC and in collaboration with RadiaBeam Design and assemble a conduction cooled cryomodule.
The nearly assembled cryomodule is located in the Heavy Assembly Building at IARC’s Fermilab. Photo: Daniel Svoboda, Fermilab.
This partnership is part of the Department of Energy Small and Medium Enterprise Innovation Research The SBIR program encourages small and medium-sized businesses in the United States to engage in federal research and development activities that have the potential to commercialize future technologies. The cryomodule is fully assembled and on its way to California. Therefore, RadiaBeam performs additional tests.
“Part of IARCS’ mission is to engage with industry and help transfer technology developed in our labs to industrial partners,” said Chris Edwards, Fermilab’s engineering project manager. Masu. “At this time, industry needs the ability to run accelerators efficiently, providing high enough power to make a good business case for their use.”
Industry uses accelerators for a variety of applications, including sterilization of medical devices and isotope production. Several new markets are emerging in the areas of waste remediation, pavement treatment, and treatment of PFAS chemicals. Typical industrial accelerators today use room-temperature copper, which is relatively inefficient and expensive at high powers.
In contrast, superconducting radio frequency accelerators can operate at much higher powers and are much more efficient. However, conventional HE SRF accelerators often rely on liquid helium to cool the cavity. This makes the infrastructure very complex, as the use of liquid helium requires cryogen plants, sophisticated machinery, and specialized operators. Large companies and scientific institutions like Fermilab have the necessary infrastructure and expertise to do this. This is not the case for small businesses and universities.
Fortunately, advances in the cryogenic cooling industry have simplified the cooling infrastructure required for SRF machines.
“Modern cryocoolers are units that remove the heat generated within accelerator cavities, allowing for conductive cooling of these cavities. This allows them to operate at higher temperatures than traditional cryomodules require. ,” said Charles Thangaraj, Fermilab’s technology development and commercialization manager.
RadiaBeam engineers worked with Fermilab personnel to design the cryomodule. Their goal was to create a cryomodule with minimal heat loss. For in-facility operation or use in the field, he needed to conductively cool the SRF cavity by making full use of a multi-stage cryocooler. This cryomodule includes heat and magnetic shielding and was scaled to fit into a 4.5-cell 650MHz cavity, which is about the size of a kitchen refrigerator. All purchased equipment and components were sourced, manufactured, and verified at RadiaBeam before being shipped to Fermilab for assembly and testing.
Engineering Associate Michael Henry helped assemble the cryomodule used by Fermilab’s industrial partner, RadiaBeam Technologies. Photo: Daniel Svoboda, Fermilab.
Fermilab engineer Michael Henry did most of the assembly of the cryogenic module, which consists of an upper cryocooler and an inner container and cavity. He had to build the cryomodule in stages, ordering and adding new components and testing the components as needed. Throughout this process, he regularly collaborated with his RadiaBeam engineers. He kept them informed of progress, explained any problems, and shared solutions and potential solutions so they could work together to address them.
Once assembled, Henry and his team tested the vacuum and cooling systems. After determining that the cryomodule was in the best shape, they shipped it to RadiaBeam.
“This partnership completely changes the game. We can now build conduction-cooled cryomodules that can handle higher-energy electron beams, and we have the industrial capacity to build such modules. ,” said Thangaraj.
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. The Office of Science is the largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and works to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. Learn more about. science energy government.
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