Study of 3MeV DC Electron Beam Accelerator to implement Distributed Control System

Abstract

Electron beams with beam energy in the range of 0.2 to 10 MeV have found a large number of industrial applications such as cross linking of plastic film, foam and cables, degradation of scrap Teflon, sterilization of medical products and food irradiation. Keeping these industrial applications in mind, the development and commissioning of a 3 MeV accelerator is being done at Electron Beam Center at Kharghar, Navi Mumbai. The accelerator comprises of several sub systems such as Scan magnet supply, Chiller unit, Vacuum unit, High voltage unit and other support sub-systems. All the above subsystems have to be controlled from central location in order to operate and monitor the accelerator safely. Each of the sub-system is controlled by a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) independently and their control and safety is ensured by the program logic. After each subsystem is tested separately all the PLCs are connected to the central PLC via Modbus RS232 and Modbus TCP-IP to implement the technology of Distributed Control System (DCS). A DCS refers to a process in which elements from different locations can be controlled by inputs from a remote place by different modes of control implementation.