Automated performance history database for the Particle Beam Fusion Accelerator-I

The PBFA-I accelerator contains 36 relatively independent parallel modules. Peak signal levels and switch fire times from up to 300 points on the accelerator are recorded as single values by a computer-controlled accelerator Performance Monitoring and Evaluation System (PMES). In addition to being used for post-shot analysis, these data values are stored in a keyed access, relational database. This database contains the historical performance of every monitored pulse power component. Raw timing data is combined with another database containing fixed cable lengths and propagation times to compute module delays and switch turn on times. Interactive software has been written to perform various kinds of data analyses. These include plots of historical performance of each device and statistical analyses of selected sets of data over many shots.