A study of thermal behavior of Travelling Wave Tube

Travelling wave tube (TWT) is a broadband vacuum microwave devices used as a high power microwave amplifier in satellite for communication. Thermal management of space TWT is one of the key aspects influencing its reliability, efficiency and life. The performance and efficiency of the TWT have relevance to the heat distribution and thermal equilibrium condition. The multi-stage depressed collector (MDC) of a TWT is the bulkiest part with highest thermal load and demand efficient thermal management. In the paper author have presented power distribution estimation using energy balance principal and compared with the experimental results. The heat loss in the MDC is obtained from both simulation and experimental results, corresponding temperature profile of MDC is simulated in the ANSYS.