A Real-Time Electron Beam Uniformity Measurement System for Irradiation Electron Accelerator: Design and Test

Electron accelerators are becoming increasingly significant in the irradiation industry. Beam uniformity is a critical accelerator parameter that influences the quality of irradiation processing technology. As a result, precise measurement of beam uniformity is necessary. In actual processing and production, the accelerator often needs to operate continuously under different beam current conditions. The aim of this work is to offer a new measurement system that can determine the beam uniformity of electron accelerators in real-time under various beam currents. The measurement system is implemented based on the intercept measurement method. The electron collection device is designed using the Monte Carlo simulation code FLUKA, and the electron beam collection efficiency is effectively calculated. To realize the measurement under large beam power conditions, the thermal–mechanical analysis of the collection device was carried out using the finite element simulation software ANSYS, and a cooling device was designed. A measurement device platform was created using the design parameters and tested under an industrial irradiation electron accelerator with a beam energy of 1.2 MeV and beam current of 0–18 mA. The test results showed that the device could measure the beam scanning distribution in real-time under different beam current conditions. In addition, the uniformity measurement results showed that under the same beam energy condition, as the beam current increases, the uniformity gradually decreases and tends to be stable, but the difference between the beam current at the two ends and the middle position increases. The effective design and successful test of the device make it possible to use the device to measure the scanning uniformity of electron accelerators in the future, and the measurement results will provide an essential reference value in the production and application of accelerators.