Speaker
Description
The Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) is an H-ion accelerator-based neutron source constructed in Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The accelerator delivers 1 GeV, 1.4 MW proton beams to Mercury target for delivering pulsed neutron particles for scientific research. The accelerator employs H- plasma ion source, RFQ, MEBT, DTL, CCL, SCL, and accumulator ring. Since commissioning in 2006, SNS RF Systems have been being tuned up steadily toward the 1.4 MW design beam power with the ion source delivering 38 mA peak pulsed H- beam current (26 mA chopped average). Recently the SNS had a long maintenance outage to replace the RFQ for improved system performance. Other RF systems have provided reasonably reliable operational performances for neutron production. The SNS now has the proton power upgrade (PPU) project that will increase the peak beam current to 59 mA (38 mA chopped average), the beam energy to 1.3 GeV, and the total beam power to 2.8 MW. The inclusion of the new RFQ in the SNS linac is an important upgrade in SNS for robust operation with the present beam power requirement as well as the future power upgrade that will need the robustness of the linac injector system. The status and progress of the operations and the development of the RF systems, subsystems, and components in the SNS linac will be presented.