Repair of overheating linear accelerator

Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) is a proton accelerator that produces high energy particle beams for experiments. These beams include neutrons and protons for diverse uses including radiography, isotope production, small feature study, lattice vibrations and material science. The Drift Tube Linear Accelerator (DTL) is the first portion of a half mile long linear section of accelerator that raises the beam energy from 750 keV to 100 MeV. In its 31st year of operation (2003), the DTL experienced serious issues. The first problem was the inability to maintain resonant frequency at full power. The second problem was increased occurrences of over-temperature failure of cooling hoses. These shortcomings led to an investigation during the 2003 yearly preventative maintenance shutdown that showed evidence of excessive heating: discolored interior tank walls and copper oxide deposition in the cooling circuits. Since overheating was suspected to be caused by compromised heat transfer, improving that was the focus of the repair effort. Investigations revealed copper oxide flow inhibition and iron oxide scale build up. Acid cleaning was implemented with careful attention to protection of the base metal, selection of components to clean and minimization of exposure times. The effort has been very successful in bringing the accelerator through a complete eight month run cycle allowing an incredible array of scientific experiments to be completed this year (2003-2004). This paper will describe the systems, investigation analysis, repair, return to production and conclusion.