Physics & Astronomy

Recent results for charging belts on the ECU 2-MV tandem accelerator

J.L. Shinpaugh, R.A. McLawhorn, S.L. McLawhorn, J.M. Joyce, and L.H. Toburen

Department of Physics

East Carolina University

Greenville, NC 27858

The High Voltage Engineering (HVE) 2-MV tandem Van de Graaff accelerator in the Department of Physics at East Carolina University ran with the original charging belt from its installation in 1971 until 2002.  After the original belt broke, a second HVE belt, stored since 1971, was installed. This belt ran for approximately 1750 hours until breaking in March of 2007. A belt purchased from Passaic Rubber Company in New Jersey, stored as a spare after the original HVE belt broke in 2002, was installed and subsequently abandoned when it failed to tract properly. Since April, 2007, we have purchased and tested several sets of belts from Forbo Siegling, LLC.  These have included belts fabricated at the Siegling facility in North Carolina and high-speed power transmission belts produced in Germany and Slovenia.  In addition, we have built a simulator for testing the mechanical and charge transport properties of charging belts. Our recent test results for the various Siegling belts will be presented.