Sunday March 7 2021 NPL accelerator facility Steven
- Slides: 5
Sunday, March 7, 2021 NPL accelerator facility Steven Judge National Physical Laboratory 1
NPL 3. 5 MV Van de Graaff accelerator Graphite pile provides thermal neutron field for instrument characterisation, particularly reactor instruments Low scatter facility enables provision of mono-energetic neutron fields for instrument characterisation 2
Sunday, March 7, 2021 Current technical specification • 3. 5 MV Van de Graaff generator • Protons and deuterons, low energy limit = 1 Me. V • Beam current 1 -80 μA • Monoenergetic neutron fields from 8 ke. V to 16. 5 Me. V • Thermal pile: 3 x 107 neutrons s-1 cm-2 in the centre, stability better than 0. 25%. Used for instrument calibration and for radionuclide production eg 56 Mn • Low scatter hall 3
Sunday, March 7, 2021 Additional requirements for new facility • Lower energy beams – down to 150 ke. V to produce 14 Me. V neutrons for fusion related research • Higher energy beams – to produce monoenergetic neutrons in the range 2. 5 Me. V to 5 Me. V • Nanosecond pulse mode • Higher beam current – up to 200 μA desirable • Improved availability – 24 hour operation 4
Sunday, March 7, 2021 Next steps • NPL’s initial proposal is to replace the Van de Graaff generator with a broadly equivalent accelerator. • Involvement of academic and industrial partners in establishing and running a new facility is essential. • How we go about this – to be decided… 5
