Author: Borden, M.J.
Paper Title Page
TUP133 Mechanical Design and Fabrication of a New RF Power Amplifier for LANSCE 1085
 
  • Z. Chen, M.J. Borden, N.K. Bultman, C.A. Chapman, J. Davis, J.L. Ferris, T.S. Gomez, J.T.M. Lyles, A.C. Naranjo
    LANL, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA
  • D. Baca, R.E. Bratton, R.D. Summers
    Compa Industries, Inc., Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA
 
  Funding: Work supported by the United States Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Agency, under contract DE-AC52-06NA25396
A Full-scale prototype of a new 201 MHz RF Final Power Amplifier (FPA) for Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) has been designed, fabricated, assembled and installed in the test facility. This prototype was successfully tested and met the physics and electronics design criteria. With a goal to produce 3.2 MW peak power at 15% duty factor, at the elevation of over 2 km in Los Alamos, The team faced design and manufacturing challenges. The mechanical design of the final power amplifier was built around a Thales TH628 Diacrode®, a state-of-art tetrode power tube*. The main structure includes Input circuit, Output circuit, Grid decoupling circuit, Output coupler, Tuning pistons, and a cooling system. Many kinds of material were utilized to make this new RF amplifier. The FPA is nearly 1000 kg and installed in a beam structural support stand. In this paper, we summarize the FPA design basis and fabrication, plating, and assembly process steps with necessary lifting and handling fixtures. In addition, to ensure the quality of the FPA support structure a finite element analysis with seismic design forces has also been carried out.
* J. Lyles, S. Archuletta, N. Bultman, Z. Chen, et al., “Design of a New VHF RF Power Amplifier System for LANSCE”, IPAC’10, Kyoto, Japan, May 24-28, 2010.