TIG welding of aluminum alloys for the APS storage ring - a UHV application

The Advanced Photon Source (APS) incorporates a 7-GeV positron storage ring 1104 meters in circumference. The storage ring vacuum system is designed to maintain a pressure of 1 nTorr or less with a circulating current of 300 mA to enable beam lifetimes of greater than 10 hours. The vacuum chamber is an aluminum extrusion of 6063T5 alloy. There are 235 separate aluminum vacuum chambers in the storage ring connected by stainless steel bellows assemblies. Aluminum was chosen for the vacuum chamber because it can be economically extruded and machined, has good thermal conductivity, low thermal emissivity, a low outgassing rate, low residual radioactivity, and is non-magnetic. The 6063 aluminum-silicon-magnesium alloy provides high strength combined with good machining and weldability characteristics. The extrusion process provides the interior surface finish needed for the ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) environments There are six different vacuum chambers with the same extrusion cross section. The average vacuum chamber length is 171.6 inches. The extruded vacuum chambers are welded to flange assemblies made up of machined 2219 aluminum alloy pieces and 2219 aluminum vacuum flanges from a commercial source