Design and performance of the SNS credited beam power limit system

THMG006
25 Sept 2025, 15:15
3m
Grand Ballroom (Palmer House Hilton Chicago)

Grand Ballroom

Palmer House Hilton Chicago

17 East Monroe Street Chicago, IL 60603, United States of America
Poster Presentation with Mini Oral MC07: Functional Safety and Protection Systems THMG Mini-Orals (MC07, MC11, MC12)

Speaker

Kelly Mahoney (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)

Description

The US Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) is the world’s most powerful pulsed spallation neutron source. The recently completed Proton Power Upgrade (PPU) project doubles the available average beam power from 1.4 to 2.8 MW. However, 0.8 MW of that is intended for a future second target station (STS), which is in the preliminary design phase. The mercury based first target station (FTS) has a safety design basis limit of 2.0 MW, thus a precision credited safety system is needed to ensure the proton beam power cannot exceed this limit. The Beam Power Limit System (BPLS) is a novel FPGA/PLC based safety credited instrument that measures beam energy and charge to calculate beam power and will shut off the proton beam if the power exceeds 2MW + 10% for a specified period of time. This paper will discuss the design challenges and operational performance of the BPLS as a credited system.

Funding Agency

This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

Author

Kelly Mahoney (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)

Co-authors

Ashwini Aher (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) Trent Allison (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) Patrick Bong (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) Miljko Bobrek (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) Craig Deibele (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) Nicholas Evans (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) Kay-Uwe Kasemir (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) Chrysostomos "Tommy" Michaelides (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)

Presentation materials

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