Alignment techniques for the high current AIRIX accelerator

AIRIX is a linear induction accelerator which will produce by the end of 1999, a 20 MeV, 3.5 kA, 60 ns electron beam for X-ray radiographic applications. The high performance required for the French Radiographic Hydrotest Facility is connected to the beam quality and thus to the accelerator alignment. To minimize corkscrew motion and emittance increase of the beam, mechanical and magnetic alignments have been performed to assemble and align the accelerator cells by using capacitive detectors such as HLS (Hydrostatic Levelling System) and WPS (Wire Positioning System). In order to perform magnetic alignment, the stretched wire technique has been developed for an automatic magnetic characterization of the cells. In this paper we present and discuss the different alignment techniques but also the first results obtained