AbstractThe advantages of superconducting (SC) cavity have been verified for many electron accelerators and the application of SC cavity to high intensity CW ion linacs is currently being considered. These linacs have been required for neutron irradiation tests of materials, transmutation of nuclear waste and so on. An SC linac consisting of SC cavities, SC quadrupole magnets and cryostats, was preliminarily designed to investigate the feasibility of applying to deuteron machine. Beam dynamics analysis was also carried out by using a modified PARMILA code in order to confirm no beam loss. Since radiation damage of superconductors is especially severe for such a machine, data relating to the damage were surveyed and discussed. Moreover, other major facilities such as cryogenic system, radio frequency (rf) amplifier and rf control system were considered. Many problems to be solved were defined but no critical issues were found. In consequence, it became clear that SC linac is very attractive and competitive with a room-temperature linac.