Conceptual design of the Cylindertron, a new electron accelerator

This paper describes the conceptual design of the Cylindertron, a new continuous wave (cw) electron accelerator for industrial irradiation of food, corn, forestry products and so on. This device has a compact cylindrical structure, with several alternate acceleration cavities and coupling cavities located symmetrically around the axis of the cylinder. An electric field is concentrated near the middle areas of the acceleration cavities where the magnetic field is too weak to affect electron beams. Electron beams are accelerated several times by turning spirally around the axis of the cylinder and passing through the acceleration cavities repeatedly with the help of some special elements. The Cylindertron performs successive acceleration and focusing by the use of bending magnets, and it is suitable for accelerating continuous electron beams at modest output power ratings between 20 and 100 kW in the 0.9–5 MeV range. The results of dynamics simulations confirm the possibility of acquiring a final energy of about 5 MeV.