SIMULATION OF HIGH-AVERAGE POWER WINDOWS FOR ACCELERATOR PRODUCTION OF TRITIUM*

Development of a robust, high-average-power (210 kW, CW) microwave transmission line system for the Accelerator Production of Tritium (APT) facility is a stringent engineering and operational requirement. One key component in this RF transmission system is the vacuum barrier window. The requirement of high-power handling capability coupled to the desirability of good mean time to failure characteristics can be treated substantially with a set of microwave, thermal-structural, and Weibull analysis codes. In this paper, we examine realistic 3-D engineering models of the ceramic windows. We model the detailed cooling circuit and make use of accurate heat deposition models for the RF. This input and simulation detail is used to analyze the thermal-structural induced stresses in baseline coaxial window configurations. We also use a Weibull-distribution failure prediction code (CARES), using experimentally obtained ceramic material failure data and structural analysis calculations, to infer probability of failure.