Design of Portable Electron Beam Facility

Last crawled date: 1 year, 11 months ago

Contaminated soil at the oil drilling sites can be easily treated by an electron beam of sufficient
intensity and energy releasing profitable by-products like oil. The increasing number of such sites
and the need for the remediation of the soil calls for a portable electron beam facility. This project
details the design of such facility, which can be transported to the desired location, and can be set
up within three days. The design includes an electron accelerator of variable power, which along
with the variable-speed portable conveyors, allows for the control of the dose received by the soil.
The backscattered electrons and the Bremsstrahlung radiation are shielded by thick walls made
by sandwiching soil in between thin sheet-metal walls. The oil vapors produced as a by-product
are extracted using a suction fan. Designing was done in the 3D-modelling software (SolidWorks)
and stress analysis was performed on the structural components, to validate the design. The entire
design fits on one oversized trailer and two standard trailers. Preliminary calculations indicate that,
with the proposed design, irradiation of more than 50 metric tons of soil per day can be achieved
at the highest power capacity (245 kW) of the accelerator used.