Accelerator magnet plugging by metal oxides: a theoretical investigation, remediation and preliminary results

The Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility has experienced magnet overheating at high power. Overheating is caused by cooling water passages becoming plugged and is a direct result of the Dean Effect deposition of corrosion products suspended in the water. Solving simplified dynamic model equations of the flow in the magnet tubing bends yielded a relationship for plugging rate as a function of particle size, concentration, velocity, channel width and bend radius. Calculated deposition rates using data from a previous study are promising. Remediation has consisted of submicron filtration, magnet cleaning, and dissolved oxygen removal. Preliminary results are good: no accelerator outages have been attributed to magnet plugging since the remediation has been completed.