Abort Kicker Power Supply Systems at Fermilab

Over the past several years, Fermilab has been operating with a single turn proton abort system in both the superconducting Tevatron and the conventional Main Ring. The abort kicker power supply for this system discharges a lumped capacitance into the inductive magnet load, causing the beam to enter the abort channel. The characteristics of this current waveform are defined by the requirements of the machine operation. The standard fixed target running mode calls for 12 booster batches of beam which leaves a rotating gap in the beams of approx.1.8 ..mu..s. The current waveform is required to rise to 90% of I/sub max/ in this time to avoid beam loss from partially deflected beam. Aperture limitations in both the accelerator and the abort channel demand that the current in the magnets stays above this 90% I/sub max/ for the 21 ..mu..s needed to ensure all the beam has left the machine. The 25 mm displacement needed to cleanly enter the abort channel at 1 TeV corresponds to a maximum current in each of the 4 modules of approx.20 kA. Similar constraints are needed for the Main Ring and Tevatron antiproton abort systems. A unique feature of this design is the highmore » voltage, high current diode assembly used to clip the recharge of the capacitor bank. This allows the current to decay slowly with the L/R time constant of the magnet and diode series combination. Special attention is given to the diode characteristics needed for this passive switching element. Operational experience and proposed upgrades are given for the two operational systems. 2 refs., 4 figs., 1 tab.« less