Optimization of Chemical Etching Process in Niobium Cavities

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

9-28-2004

First page number:

1

Last page number:

9

Abstract

Superconducting niobium cavities are important components of linear accelerators. Buffered chemical polishing (bcp) on the inner surface of the cavity is a standard procedure to improve its performance. The quality of bcp, however, has not been optimized well in terms of the uniformity of surface smoothness. A finite element computational fluid dynamics (cfd) model was developed to simulate the chemical etching process inside the cavity. The analysis confirmed the observation of other researchers that the sections closer to the axis of the cavity received more etching than other regions. A baffle was used by LANL personnel to direct the flow of the etching fluid toward the walls of the cavity. A new baffle design was tuned using optimization techniques. The redesigned baffle significantly improves the performance of the etching process. To verify these results an experimental setup for flow visualization was created. The setup consists of a high speed, high resolution ccd camera. The camera is positioned by a computer-controlled traversing mechanism. A dye injecting arrangement is used for tracking the fluid path. Experimental results are in general agreement with computational findings.

Keywords

Accelerator-driven systems – Design and construction; Cavitation erosion; Etching; Linear accelerators; Niobium

Controlled Subject

Accelerator-driven systems; Cavitation erosion; Linear accelerators

Disciplines

Engineering Science and Materials | Mechanical Engineering | Nuclear Engineering | Oil, Gas, and Energy

Language

English

Comments

Conference September 28 - October 2, 2004, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Permissions

Use Find in Your Library, contact the author, or use interlibrary loan to garner a copy of the article. Publisher copyright policy allows author to archive post-print (author’s final manuscript). When post-print is available or publisher policy changes, the article will be deposited


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