It was announced on June 27th that the Drift Tube Linac(DTL) prototype for the China Spallation Neutron Source (CSNS) Project was successfully developed at the Institute of High Energy Physics. 

CSNS DTL prototype

DTL is one of the key components of the CSNS accelerator. While making the physics design, IHEP scientists solved the deficiencies existing in international DTL structure design by modifying its local frequency and improving the axial electrical field distribution. These improvements led to a huge increase in the design precision.

In DTL prototype design, the periodic reverse (PR) copper electroforming was applied successfully in the inner surface of the large RF cavity. The hollow coil of the electromagnetic quadrupole was manufactured by line-cut technology. Both of these technologies were adopted for the first time in the accelerator fabrication in China. The whole drift tube body was made of oxygen free copper (OFC).

At the preliminary stage of the project, scientists established the DTL RF tuning system with new tuning software being developed. The alignment accuracy of the drift tubes had reached a high level which fully met the beam dynamics requirements.

At a review meeting on June 27, experts from the Beijing University and IHEP listened to the project report on its R&D process, commissioning and testing results. After watching the on-site testing video, experts concluded that the DTL prototype had met all the design specifications and laid a solid basis for the future production of CSNS DTL facility.