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SNS Partnerships:

Brookhaven National Laboratory

The Accumulator Ring
 
SNS Ring
 
Interior of the SNS ring tunnel during equipment installation.
 

Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) was responsible for the accumulator ring structure, which bunches and intensifies the ion beam for delivery to the mercury target to produce pulsed neutron beams. The intense negative hydrogen (H-) beam from the linac must be compressed more than 1000 times to produce the extremely short, sharp bunch of neutrons needed for optimal neutron-scattering research. To accomplish this goal, the H- pulse from the linac is wrapped into the ring through a stripper foil that strips the electrons from the negatively charged hydrogen ions to produce the protons (H+) that circulate in the ring. Approximately 1,200 turns are accumulated, and then all of the protons are kicked out at once, producing a pulse less than 1 millionth of a second (10-6 seconds) in duration that is delivered to the target. In this way, short, intense proton pulses are produced, stored, and extracted at a rate of 60 times a second to bombard the target.

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  Information Contact : neutronscience@ornl.gov  

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