INNOVATION November-December 2014

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be many agreements to manufacture and sell leading-edge SRF accelerators to customers around the world. For the project’s Design Engineer, Norman Muller, EIT, the biggest challenge also involved the SRF cavities, but in a completely different way. “We wanted to have two cavities per cryomodule; those are what actually accelerate the beam,” he says. “The niobium becomes superconducting when it reaches cryogenic temperatures, below about 10 Kelvin, but for efficiency we need the niobium to function at about 2 Kelvin, or minus 271 Celsius. We had to be able to assemble the cavities at room temperature, but be sure they would operate as intended at the operating temperature.” Now that the cryomodules are complete, Muller’s next focus will be the target stations, where the e-linac beams end and the experiments begin. “What’s really exciting,” he says, “is that the RF and cryogenic technology we’ve developed here will not just be used in labs. There are many applications for it elsewhere, such as interrogation scanners for security and accelerators for nuclear medicine. It’s technology not that many engineers get to see.” Fellow engineer Eric Guetre calls it “showcase technology. Integrating leading-edge systems like high-power RF and 2 Kelvin cryogenics is unique and incredibly complex, and it proves that Canada is at the forefront of accelerator physics and engineering.” v

Details on The E-Linac for The Techies Among Us • The e-linac is a 50 MeV (electron energy), high- average-current (10 mA) continuous-wave (CW) linear accelerator founded on DESY superconducting RF (radio frequency) technology at 1.3 GHz and 2 Kelvin. This technology prepares Canada to participate in high- energy physics projects, such as CERN-Superconducting Proton Linac and the International Linear Collider (ILC). • The e-linac consists of an electron gun, buncher cavity, injector cryomodule, and two main-linac cryomodules. The injector module contains a single nine-cell cavity that accelerates to a few MeV. Each of the main-linac cryomodules, accelerating by 20 MeV, contains two 9-cell cavities. The cavities operate at 10 MV/m, and each has an active length of 1 m. • Every three accelerating cavities require 100kg of pure niobium. Niobium is a soft, grey, ductile transition metal, which is often found in the pyrochlore mineral, the main commercial source for niobium. And it’s green, too • The e-linac uses far less power than accelerators using older technology, says Dr. Shane Koscielniak. “If it had been built using copper, it would use close to 10 megawatts, with too much heat wasted. Our power consumption is 1.5 MW, and one-third of that goes into the electron beam.” • Whatever waste heat the e-linac does produce will go to a good home. A partnership between TRIUMF and UBC will work to exploit any waste heat from the e-linac, and up to 10 MW from the entire TRUMF site, to heat surrounding residential neighborhoods. • The ARIEL building was constructed to LEED Gold standard. And You Thought Your Job Was Hard ARIEL Project Engineer Eric Guetre says the biggest challenge for him personally was figuring out how to safely thread about 1,400 cables from equipment racks on the Electron Hall roof, down through shield walls and over cable trays, hangers and guides to where they could connect to the e-linac. “With an average length of 55 meters, that’s over 75 kilometres of cables,” he says. “The challenge was to coordinate the purchase of so many cables that met various technical requirements but that could also withstand radiation damage, and then to coordinate the labour needed to pull all those cables from the equipment racks to the machine, all the while ensuring that the cables are laid in a way that minimizes electromagnetic interference between systems.” It took dozens of TRIUMF staff and student volunteers, all wearing white gloves for protection and to minimize dust, to pull, untangle and fit the cables into their final positions.

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