A New Method for Measuring Thermal Characteristics of Multistage Depressed Collectors

Multistage depressed collectors (MDCs) of traveling-wave tubes (TWTs) are used to collect kinetic power of a spent electron beam, recover part of this power to a useful electric power, and, by such a way, enhance the overall efficiency of TWTs. The heat-dissipation performance of MDCs is crucial. This brief presents a method for measuring the heat-dissipation characteristics of an MDC using an external heat source and a heat monitor. This method uses thermal transient testing techniques to measure the thermal contact resistance (TCR) of MDC. A heat source is designed to measure the characteristics of the MDC, and a SiC Schottky barrier diode is used as a heat monitor to detect the temperature changes in real time. The results show that the method is effective to measure the thermal characteristics of the MDC.