CAMD Upgrades
Lorraine Marceau-Day, day@lsu.edu
As everyone is gearing up for the upcoming annual meeting in West Palm Beach, we have all been reviewing our latest results. Here, at CAMD, we are no different. At the moment we are evaluating more than 20 years of environmental monitoring for our facility. This is quite a daunting task, especially, as the data is scattered in multiple places.
At this time, CAMD remains in a seesaw pattern. We have received funding for a new 7.5 T multi-pole wiggler. This means moving several beamlines and our shield wall. This insertion device will be installed late in 2012. Some of the new designs of the beamlines also present some interesting health physics challenges. The new tomography beamline will be installed with a Laue Monochromator. Our experience with such devices indicates that they are major scattering devices. Since the ring circumference, is a modest 55 meters, the introduction of multiple beamlines within a relatively small space means that there is no one size fits all design for our radiation hutches, whether they be primary optical enclosures or secondary hutches. There is also a substantial increase in the power of the new insertion device compared with the existing insertion device (Figure 1). Due to the large scope of the work, we anticipate the shutdown to last several months [at least with respect to achieving usable beam]. This is due, in part, to the current budgetary constraints at the facility wherein we can only afford to operate 14 hours per day on a 8/14 day schedule. One day is left for studies and another within this 2 week period for maintenance. Maintenance also includes any special requirements such as interlock testing [mandated quarterly]. This truncated schedule will also contribute to the extended shutdown period as vacuum conditioning will take about 4 months to achieve normal user beam. Of course, then as beam lifetime is shortened due to the poor vacuum, additional injection periods will be required, which of course, will result in additional radiation. Another significant project that is planned [though currently, unfunded] is the upgrade of the Linac from 200 MeV to 300 MeV. This would significantly decrease the size of the beam during injection and also permit longer lifetimes. There are significant health physics issues here. These include moving the klystron galleries to the user hall to accommodate the 3rd accelerating unit in the tunnel and the need for additional shielding here; increasing the frequency of the Linac from 1 to 5 Hz [with a linear relationship existing between frequency and the amount of radiation seen]; implementation of additional shielding to accommodate the increased energy output, installation of new shielding between the new magnet gaps in the vertical transport line and shielding the wave guides from the klystron galleries that will now be housed in the user hall.
The seesaw nature of our facility resides with the fact that without continual support and current state government budget shortfalls [our state constitution requires we operate with a balanced budget], there is an effort to define the decommissioning issues and costs that may need to be addressed sooner than later.
