Search

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.

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. Keywords: IFMIF, LIPAc, RFQ, Accelerator, Deuteron, Neutron source

The goal of LIPAc (Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator) is to achieve a 125 mA, 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 mea- surement, 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.

For the development of the International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility (IFMIF) aiming at material tests for fusion power plants, the construction of the Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator (LIPAc) has been conducted at Rokkasho, Japan under the Broader Approach Agreement. The commissioning of LIPAc has been progressing significantly. The world most powerful RFQ successfully accelerated proton beam of 58 mA, and an important project milestone of the acceleration of deuteron beam to 5 MeV with the beam current of 125 mA in pulse mode was successfully achieved. The result proves the validity of the present RFQ design. The adjustment and tuning of the RF power system and the injector for enabling an operation at maximum performances played an important role in achieving this result. For the next step, the preparation of the high duty cycle operation of RFQ is underway. The installation of the HEBT (High Energy Beam Transport line) and the beam dump accepting 1 MW, CW beam, has been completed and a new beam transport line is under manufacturing. Also the assembly of the Superconducting RF (SRF) linac to accelerate the beam up to 9 MeV started in a clean room in Rokkasho.

The Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator aims to operate in Rokkasho Fusion Institute a 125 mA/cw deuteron beam at 9 MeV In order to prove the technical feasibility of the IFMIF accelerators concept. A 2.45 GHz ECR ion source developed by CEA-Saclay is designed to deliver 140 mA/100 keV CW D + beam. The low energy beam transfer line (LEBT) relies on a dual solenoid focusing system to transport and match the beam into the next accelerating section which is a Radio-Frequency Quadrupole (RFQ). At the end of the LEBT, the normalized RMS emittance has to be lower than 0.3π mm.mrad in order to reach the optimal beam transmission through the RFQ. This contribution will present the different commissioning phases of LIPAC ion source and LEBT. The experimental results that have been obtained will be reported. In particular, beam emittance measurements as a function of ion source extraction voltage gaps, total extracted current from the source and solenoid tunings will be showed. In order to model as well as possible the beam transport thought LEBT, intensive beam dynamics simulations that take into account space charge compensation have been performed using a self-consistent particle-in-cell code. Simulation results will be discussed and compared to experimental data.

The IFMIF project aiming at material tests for a future fusion DEMO reactor is under the EVEDA phase in the BA Agreement of fusion program between Japan and EU. As the accelerator activity, the installation and commissioning of the Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator (LIPAc) is at the second stage of demonstration of the feasibility of the low energy section of an IFMIF deuteron accelerator up to 9 MeV with a beam current of 125 mA, CW. The installation of injector, RFQ, MEBT, D-Plate and LPBD for LIPAc with 8 coaxial high-power transmission lines and RF power system was just done in 2017 at Rokkasho, Japan. After that, the RF conditioning of RFQ for beam commissioning is underway. The beam commissioning of RFQ with H+/D+ and the acceleration demonstration up to 5MeV-125mA-0.1% duty cycle with D+ will be done.

IFMIF, the International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility, is an accelerator-based neutron source that will use Li(d, xn) reactions to generate a flux of neutrons with a broad peak at 14 MeV equivalent to the conditions of the Deuterium-Tritium reactions in a fusion power plant. IFMIF is conceived for fusion materials testing. The IFMIF prototype linear accelerator (LIPAc) is jointly developed by Europe and Japan within the IFMIF EVEDA project: it is composed of an ion source, a LEBT, an RFQ, a MEBT and a SC linac, with a final energy of 9 MeV. The 4-vane Radio Frequency Quadrupole (RFQ), developed by INFN in Italy, will accelerate a 130 mA deuteron beam from 0.1 to 5 MeV in continuous wave, for a beam power of 650 kW. The 9.8 m long 175 MHz cavity is composed of 18 x 0.54 m long modules flanged together and aligned within 0.3 mm tolerance. The RFQ was completed, delivered and assembled at the Rokkasho site and is presently under extended RF tests. The second phase of beam commissioning (up to 2.5 MeV/u) was scheduled to start at the end of 2017. Several unexpected issues and incidents significantly delayed the original program, which is however proceeding step by step toward the full achievement of its goals., 9th International Particle Accelerator COnference - IPAC2018

As a part of Engineering Validation and Engineering Design Activities (EVEDA) of the International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility (IFMIF), a prototype accelerator to validate the key technology to realize IFMIF is under construction and testing at the International Fusion Energy Research Center (IFERC) in Rokkasho, Japan. Since April 2015, the ion source commissioning has been started and a 100 keV/144 mA/CW deuterium beam with, 第14回日本加速器学会年会

The goal of LIPAc (Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator) is to achieve a 125 mA, 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.

The Linear IFMIF (International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility) Prototype Accelerator (LIPAc) is aiming at demonstrating the low energy section of a 40 MeV/125 mA IFMIF deuteron accelerator up to 9 MeV with a full beam current in cw operation. For such a high-power beam, the LIPAc injector is required to produce a 100 keV D+ beam with 140 mA and match it for injection into the Radio Frequency Quadrupole (RFQ) accelerator. The injector is designed by CEA-Saclay based on the high intensity light ion source (SILHI). In 2019, the commissioning of the RFQ to demonstrate the D+ beam acceleration at a low duty cycle (0.1%) was conducted. A nominal beam current of 125 mA D+ beam was accelerated up to 5 MeV through the RFQ successfully. The LIPAc injector fully satisfied the requirements for RFQ beam commissioning at the pulse mode.

During the EVEDA (engineering validation and engineering design activities) phase of the International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility (IFMIF) project, a 125 mA/9 MeV linear prototype accelerator (LIPAc) has to be built, tested and operated in Rokkasho-mura (Japan). Involved in this project for several years, CEA-Saclay designed the injector of this accelerator which is composed of an electron cyclotron resonance ion source, delivering a 140 mA deuteron beam at 100 keV, and a low energy beam transport (LEBT) line to match the beam for the injection into the radio-frequency quadrupole. In this paper, the components of the LIPAc injector are described. The commissioning of the ion source and LEBT with beam started in November 2014. The different phases of the commissioning are explained and some noticeable experimental results obtained with a beam at 100 keV are presented.

The International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility (IFMIF) linear IFMIF prototype accelerator injector dedicated to high intensity deuteron beam production has been designed, built, and tested at CEA/Saclay between 2008 and 2012. After the completion of the acceptance tests at Saclay, the injector has been fully sent to Japan. The re-assembly of the injector has been performed between March and May 2014. Then after the check-out phase, the production of the first proton beam occurred in November 2014. Hydrogen and deuteron beam commissioning is now in progress after having proceeded with the final tests on the entire injector equipment including high power diagnostics. This article reports the different phases of the injector installation pointing out the safety and security needs, as well as the first beam production results in Japan and chopper tests. Detailed operation and commissioning results (with H(+) and D(+) 100 keV beams) are reported in a second article.

Ion species ratio of high current positive hydrogen/deuterium ion beams extracted from an electron-cyclotron-resonance ion source for International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility accelerator was measured by the Doppler shift Balmer-α line spectroscopy. The proton (H(+)) ratio at the middle of the low energy beam transport reached 80% at the hydrogen ion beam extraction of 100 keV/160 mA and the deuteron (D(+)) ratio reached 75% at the deuterium ion beam extraction of 100 keV/113 mA. It is found that the H(+) ratio measured by the spectroscopy gives lower than that derived from the phase-space diagram measured by an Allison scanner type emittance monitor. The H(+)/D(+) ratio estimated by the emittance monitor was more than 90% at those extraction currents.