Niobium Cavity Electropolishing Modelling and Optimisation

It’s widely accepted that electropolishing (EP) is the most suitable surface finishing process to achieve high performance bulk Nb accelerating cavities. At CERN and in preparation for the processing of the 704 MHz high-beta Superconducting Proton Linac (SPL) cavities a new vertical electropolishing facility has been assembled and a study is on-going for the modelling of electropolishing on cavities with COMSOL® software. In a first phase, the electrochemical parameters were taken into account for a fixed process temperature and flow rate, and are presented in this poster as well as the results obtained on a real SPL single cell cavity. The procedure to acquire the data used as input for the simulation is presented. The modelling procedure adopted to optimise the cathode geometry, aimed at a uniform current density distribution in the cavity cell for the minimum working potential and total current is explained. Some preliminary results on fluid dynamics is also briefly described.