ARTICLE IN PRESS

Radiation Physics and Chemistry 71 (2004) 531533

Business paper

Window transparency optimization of E-beam machines

P.B. Riosa,b,*, M.T.F. da Cruzb, M.N. Martinsb, J.C.O. Morelb
b

UNIPAC Embalagens Ltda. Av. Henry Ford 2380, CEP 03109-000, Sa o Paulo, SP, Brazil Instituto de F! sica da Universidade de Sa o Paulo, P.O. Box 66318, CEP 05315-970, Sa o Paulo, SP, Brazil

Abstract The most common kind of low-energy electron accelerators in industrial use worldwide is the E-Beam curtain machine (category I according to IAEA), which present, however, an intrinsic design problem concerning the vacuum to atmosphere interface, that makes around 2535% of the costly generated and accelerated electrons to be converted directly into heat, that need to be properly dissipated, instead of reaching the product to be processed. Todays vacuum to atmosphere window should be thick to make the heat dissipation possible, but this feature increases the amount of electron beam absorbed in it, which increases the electrical energy consumption to cool the machine. We present a new approach to increase the window transparency to more than 80%, which reduces the amount of material that stops the beam, while maintaining the mechanical strength of the system. This solution uses a novel refrigeration geometry, which allows reducing the energy consumption and manufacturing costs. The increased transparency of the window also increases the yield value of the machine, due to a more efcient use of the generated electron beam, allowing increased processing speeds for a given product dose. r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: E-beam processing; Low-energy accelerators; Electron accelerators

1. Introduction The most common kind of electron accelerator used for industrial applications is the e-beam curtain machines (category I according to IAEA SS107 IAEA, 1992). In the following gure there is a schematic of this device (Fig. 1). Up to date applications of e-beam technologies make use of relatively low energies (below 300 keV), so the prices of these machines and associated supplies are falling on the past few years (McGuire, 2000). On the other hand, in applications such as rotogravure printing or lm lamination, high processing speeds are required, and this introduces a new technological challenge to e-beam manufacturers.
*Corresponding author. UNIPAC Embalagens Ltda, Av. Henry Ford 2380 Sao Paulo, SP 03109 000, Brazil. Tel.: +5511-61651740; fax: +55-11-2749400. E-mail address: paulor@unipac-pack.com.br (P.B. Rios).

2. The processing speed and the yield The processing speed is related to the dose delivered to the product according to the mathematical expression (RPC Industries, 1995; ESI, 2001): KI DS; where, K is a yield value, I is the electron beam current, D is the dose delivered to the product and S is the processing speed. From this mathematical expression it is easy to conclude that to keep the dose constant while increasing the processing speed one must proportionally increase either the beam current or the yield value. The yield value is a proportionality constant that indicates the conversion efciency of electron beam in actually absorbed energy by the product. It depends on the irradiation geometry, the materials of the vacuum to atmosphere interface, and can be calculated by appropriate computer codes for each machine. It can also be

0969-806X/$ - see front matter r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.radphyschem.2004.03.054

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532 P.B. Rios et al. / Radiation Physics and Chemistry 71 (2004) 531533

bigger actual current densities delivered without changing the generated one, and can even be used to enhance the performance of operating units.
Generated beam Thin foil usefull beam

4. Increasing the window transparency The window transparency is the geometrical ratio between the open area (that allows the electrons to pass through) and the total area facing the cathode system. In current devices it spans roughly from 60% to 75% depending on the kind of machine. It is inversely proportional to the thermal load of the system, i.e., the bigger the transparency the smaller the thermal load, and so the dimensions of the machine and complexity of the cooling system. Obviously, this is the best way to increase the processing speed, because it will reduce the costs of both building and operating curtain machines. There are basically two types of windows used in this kind of accelerator: the array of circular holes and the bowed furrows. The rst is simpler to make, but shows smaller geometrical transparency. Due to the thickness of the foil (20 mm approximately), the holes cannot be arbitrarily large to avoid extreme thermomechanical stresses in the foil. New hole geometries has been tried but aiming to increase the treatment area, and therefore diminishing the beam current density (Avnery, 1999). An alternative window design is proposed (Rios et al., 2001), to increase the geometrical transparency and optimize the thermal exchanges on the vacuum to atmosphere interface.

filament

Copper window
Fig. 1. Cutaway view of an ordinary e-beam curtain machine.

easily obtained from dosimetry data and the operational parameters of the machine, in a very usual procedure (Nablo et al., 1992). This factor is therefore strongly dependent on the electron current density delivered to the product being treated.

3. Increasing the processing speed In order to increase the treatment speed of goods it is basically possible to: (1) Increase the current density generated by the electron gun by means, for instance, of using new lament materials, new cathode geometrical congurations, or even changing the laments to more complex cathode systems, such as the dispenser or Vehnelt. This solution introduces yet two other problems: keep the homogeneity of the beam current and the extra cooling needed for the copper window due to the bigger amount of electrons colliding with it. (2) Changing the foil material and/or thickness (Davis et al., 1996), so allowing more electrons to reach the product, and consequently reducing the thermal load of the copper windowfoil subsystem. This reduction will not be appreciable due to the already small thickness of the foils used today and there will still be a considerable number of electrons colliding directly with the copper window. (3) Increasing the copper window geometrical transparency, so diminishing its internal area facing the electron beam generated, and also the thermal load of the system, as well as its dimensions. Of the three methods above, the two latter are dealing with increasing the yield value, because they result in

5. Conclusions A rst prototype of 78% transparency has been built and is currently being tested for long-term uses (Morel, 2003). Its operating principle is based on the crossed ow heat exchanger, and it was tried to use materials for both the window and the foil with high thermal diffusivity, in order to optimize the chilling process, to obtain a smaller and less complex machine. Even though the studies have so far been limited to laboratory scale, they indicate the successful application of this design to industrial machines, which is planned for the near future at our facilities.

Acknowledgements This work could only be done with the support of two polymer converting industries that use e-beam curtain machines in their processes: UNIPAC and

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INCOPLAST, and with the nancial support of the PIPE program of FAPESP agency (grant 00/13111-55), to which the authors would like to express their gratitude.

References
Avnery, T., 1999. Electron accelerator having a wide electron beam that extends further out and is wider than the outer periphery of the device. USPAT 6545398. Davis, J.I., et al., 1996. Miniature 50 kV electron bulb for radiation curing (a new approach for constructing electron beam systems). RADTECH 1996 Proceedings, Nashville, TN, USA, pp. 317328. Energy Sciences, Inc. (ESI), 2001. Installation Manual ESI, Wilmington, MA, USA.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), 1992. Radiation Safety of Gamma and Electron Irradiation Facilities, Safety Series No. 107. IAEA, Vienna. McGuire, E., 2000. The EB challenge. RADTECH 2000 End User Proceedings, Baltimore, pp. 287295. Morel, J.C.O., 2003. Final Report on the Project Electron Accelerator for Industrial Proposes. FAPESP, Sa o Paulo, Brazil. Nablo, S.V., Lingam, R., Rangwalla, I.J., 1992. SP883 Standard Procedure Dosimetry for the Performance Evaluation of Production Eletrocuret, Wilmington, MA, USA. Rios, P.B., Martins, M.N., Morel, J.C.O., 2001. Window Transparency of E-Beam Machines, International Symposium on Uses of Accelerators. IAEA, Sa o Paulo, Brazil. RPC Industries, 1995. RPC BroadBeam Electron Beam ProcessorEP Series Service Manual. RPC, Hayward, CA, USA.