Modelling of the Superswarf Accelerators at AWE Aldermaston

Superswarf machines accelerate a 30 kA, 100 ns electron beam to 5 MV and focus onto a tantalum target to produce an X-ray dose of 80R@1m from a source diameter of 5 mm. This X-ray source is then used to radiograph fast hydrodynamic experiments. In this paper models of various sections of the accelerator from the Marx generator, through the Blumlein pulse forming line to the MITL and electron beam diode are detailed and compared with experimental results to establish accuracy.