UVA Completes the NOvA Power Distribution System

The UVA group is responsible for all aspects of the NOvA Power Distribution System: design and fabrication. Construction of the NOvA Power Distribution System started in January 2012. It was completed in September 2013. It supplies power to the 10,752 Far Detector front-end boards (FEBs), avalanche photodiodes (APDs), and thermoelectric coolers (TECs), as well as the 168 Data Concentrator Modules (DCM) that read out the FEBs. Included in the system are 60 low-voltage, high-current power supplies, 2 multi-channel high-voltage power supplies, 16 relay racks, 168 Power Distribution Boxes, 23.5 miles of cable, and 2 miles of cable trays. The UVA Antimatter Asymmetry Group fabricated, purchased, and tested all of these components and then shipped them to northern Minnesota. The heart of the system are the 168 Power Distribution Boxes which feed all the power to the Far Detector front-end boards. Each of these boxes takes 450 V, 3.3V and 24V from low- and high-voltage power supplies and feeds 60--64 FEBs and one DCM.