Analysis Of Coupled-Resonator Slow-Wave Structures For Traveling-Wave Tubes For Aerospace Applications

Abstract

Through continued innovation and growth, traveling wave tube amplifiers (TWTAs) remains the microwave power amplifiers of choice in a wide range of high power microwave and millimeter-wave applications specifically for aerospace applications with the volume, weight, bandwidth and power constraints. These advances can be credited to device innovation, improved modeling and design and development of advanced materials and construction techniques. This thesis aims at advancing the present technology of TWTs with coupled resonator slow-wave structures (SWSs) by a combination of device innovation, development of enhanced analytical and field analysis codes and understanding gained through improved modeling, simulation and experimentation. In a TWT, the SWS that slows the RF wave velocity down to near the electron beam velocity for interaction with the electron beam primarily determines the microwave performances of the tube. As compared to helix SWS, the coupled resonator SWS is capable of handling high peak and average powers with higher efficiency and TWTs based on these SWS are well suited for air-borne or space-borne radar systems and the major focus of this thesis is on the analysis and design of coupled resonator SWSs. As a part of this thesis, improved analytical codes based on quasi-TEM analysis and equivalent circuit analysis have been developed. The technical formulation is explained and the improvements made for enhanced accuracy and for incorporation of different types of coupled resonator SWSs detailed. Using these models new variants of coupled resonator SWSs have been investigated. The SWSs proposed are the ladder-core inverted slot mode SWS and the inductively loaded inter digital SWS (ILID-SWS). The possibility of achieving both coalesced mode design that gives wide bandwidth and multi beam design that improves the peak power and gain using rectangular ILID-SWS is presented. The properties of these proposed SWSs have been compared with the existing SWSs and found to give superior performance. Also an improved modeling and simulation technique using 3-D electromagnetic codes has been proposed and the conventional cold test measurement procedure has been modified for more accurate results. Numerous illustrative examples are presented throughout the thesis highlighting the analytical model and simulation code validation with experimental results. The experimentations have been carried out on the real SWS model that have been fabricated and assembled. Further, the contribution of the thesis is towards the development of a field analysis model for analysis of a corrugated waveguide SWS, based on the coupled integral equation technique (CIET), which is a combination of mode matching technique (MMT) and method of moments. The technical formulation and computational methodology employed in the model are explained and some of the most important aspects of implementation like the handling of singularities and choice of parameters controlling the accuracy is discussed. The accuracy and speed of the code is demonstrated by comparing CIET with MMT and 3-D electro magnetic simulators based on finite difference time domain (FDTD) method and finite element method (FEM). The CIET code developed is quite faster than the existing numerical methods and helps in solving the convergence problem associated with the MMT.