Reliability impact of RF tube technology for the NPB

Two reliability options, redundancy and operating margin, are examined to determine their effect on power system configurations using RF tube technology (klystron and klystrode) powered neutral particle beam (NPB) weapons. Redundancy is addressed by providing an additional RF tube identical to the tubes required to power an accelerator RF element (drift tube linac section, RF quadrupole, or coupled cavity linac). The RF elements do not share RF power with other RF elements. Operating margin provides increased reliability by sizing the RF tubes so that tube operating levels may be increased to compensate for the loss of a tube. It is shown that power system mass is affected by the choice of reliability measures, that higher power tubes coupled with higher power RF elements may mitigate the effects of mass increases, and that redundancy appears preferable to operating margin as a method of improving RF system reliability