AVS 52nd International Symposium
    Vacuum Technology Wednesday Sessions
       Session VT-WeA

Paper VT-WeA2
The ISAC Targets Vacuum System

Wednesday, November 2, 2005, 2:20 pm, Room 201

Session: Hydrogen, Outgassing, and Vacuum Systems
Presenter: D. Yosifov, TRIUMF, Canadian Research Laboratory
Authors: I. Sekachev, TRIUMF, Canadian Research Laboratory
D. Yosifov, TRIUMF, Canadian Research Laboratory
Correspondent: Click to Email
ISAC (Isotope Separator and ACcelerator) facility at TRIUMF has been in full operation since 1999. The ISAC East and West targets use the proton beam from the cyclotron to produce various radioactive isotope species in the target, which are then ionized and extracted. The ions are then passed through the mass separator and the selected ions are distributed to the low energy experiments or injected into an RFQ accelerator. The accompanying radioactive contamination from the production of radioactive ions requires the vacuum system to be quite complex. The main target vacuum space consists of two semi-separate (primary and secondary) volumes pumped by 1000L/s turbomolecular pumps. The primary volume uses four pumps while the secondary volume uses two pumps. The nominal vacuum in both volumes is about 1.0E-6 Torr. The pressure is monitored by two cold cathode ion gauges and two hot filament ion gauges. Both cold cathode gauges are used to interlock the system during the bake out of the target and beam production. Three exhaust gas storage tanks (decay tanks) are used for handling radioactive gasses and controlled release of the gasses to the atmosphere. The two ALCATEL hermetic rotary vane pumps are used as backing pumps. The gas specie insensitive membrane gauges are used for monitoring the storage tank pressures. This paper describes the details of the ISAC target vacuum system as well as some procedures related to the handling of the radioactive gasses produced by the targets.