At its maximum capacity condition, the 4.5 K refrigerator system for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) accelerator supports a 180 g/s 30 K 1.16 bar cold compressor return flow, a 14 g/s 4.5 K liquefaction load, a 4 kW 4.5 K refrigeration load, and a 20 kW 35-55 K shield load. Five additional design conditions, ranging from liquefaction to refrigeration and a stand-by/reduced load state, were specified for the sizing and selection of its components. The cold box system is comprised of a 300-60 K vertical cold box that incorporates a liquid nitrogen pre-cooler and a 60-4.5 K horizontal cold box housing seven turbines that are configured in four expansion stages including one Joule-Thompson expander. This cold box system, operates using the Ganni-Floating pressure process, automatically adjusting to the linear accelerator (Linac) load with the cold box supply (and compressor discharge) pressure varying from 6 to 21 bar, without introducing additional (artificial) loads or throttling turbine inlet valves (or other exergy loss mechanisms), and with minimal liquid nitrogen usage. This paper will briefly review the salient 4.5 K system design features and discuss the recent commissioning results.

In 2008, Michigan State University was selected to establish the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB). Construction of the FRIB accelerator was completed in January 2022. Phased accelerator commissioning with heavy ion beams started in 2017 with the normal-conducting ion source and radio-frequency quadrupole. In April 2021, the full FRIB driver linear accelerator (linac) was commissioned, with heavy ion beams accelerated to energies above 200 MeV/nucleon by 324 superconducting radiofrequency (SRF) resonators operating at 2 K and 4 K with liquid-helium cooling. In preparation for high-power operation, a liquid lithium charge stripper was commissioned with heavy ion beams up to uranium-238, followed by the simultaneous acceleration of multiple-charge-state heavy ion beams to energies above 200 MeV/nucleon. In December 2021, selenium-84 was produced with the FRIB target using a krypton-86 primary beam, demonstrating FRIB’s capability for scientific discovery.

The target and fragment pre-separator segment of the continuous wave heavy ion beam linear accelerator at FRIB consists of fourteen superconducting magnets. The cryogenic distribution system for these superconducting magnets include six cryogenic process pipes (two each for 4.5 K helium, cool-down and thermal shield) housed in an approx. 175 m long vacuum jacketed transfer line, along with associated distribution boxes, cool-down heat exchanger, utility piping (such as magnet lead flow return, purge gas etc.) and a liquid helium storage vessel for magnet quench management. Due to the physical constraints in the routing of the beam-line at this segment, designs for these magnets and the associated cryogenic distribution system are complex in nature. It poses challenges in several aspects of the design process such as, routing of the transfer line, design of piping supports and anchors, thermal shielding, mechanical flexibility etc. Design of most of the elements of the cryogenic distribution system are carried out from the ground up, and in-house at FRIB. This paper presents an overview of the process design, analysis, fabrication and installation the target and fragment pre-separator cryogenic distribution system at FRIB.

The design for the FRIB helium compressor system, used for the cryogenic refrigeration, was mainly based on the advancements developed for NASA James Webb project, improving the efficiency, reliability and maintainability from previous helium compression systems. The skid designs were further improved, first for the JLab 12 GeV project, and now with additional improvements for the FRIB project. The FRIB helium compression system has five operating compressors at maximum refrigeration capacity with an additional spare compressor. This spare can be configured to align its suction to any one of the three pressure levels of the five, discharging to the high pressure (4.5 K cold box supply) stream. This compressor system can support the 4.5 K cold box operation with a supply pressure varying from 6 to 21 bar, and without complex-sophisticated control of the gas management valves. This paper will briefly review several of the skid improvements and discuss some of the recent commissioning and test results.

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