Twenty Years of Operation of the Elettra RF System

Six thousand hours per year is the typical running scheduled time of the user-dedicated Elettra facility and twenty years is a significant amount of operating hours for the radiofrequency (RF) system. Failure and weak points of the installed equipment is discussed as well as the up-time statistic. The effectiveness of the standard versus the extraordinary maintenance is presented. The gained operational experience has allowed the planning of the priorities to revamp the installed components within a reasonable budget, in compliance with the user operation time schedule and following the technical need to improve the RF system performances. THE RF SYSTEM