Study of Thermo-Mechanical Effects Induced in Solids by High Energy Particle Beams: Analytical and Numerical Methods

Requirements of modern nuclear physics entail big efforts in the field of particle accelerator technology in order to build powerful machines providing particle beams at higher and higher energies; in this context, the Large Hadron Collider represents the future for particle physics. The LHC stores 360 MJ for each circulating beam; this large amount of energy is potentially destructive for accelerator equipments having direct interaction with particles; the need to handle high thermal loads bestows strategic importance to the study of thermo-mechanical problems in accelerator devices. The aim of this work is the study of thermo-mechanical effects induced in solids by high energy particle beams. Development of facilities devoted to the experimental test of accelerator equipments in real working conditions presents several technical difficulties and high cost; the importance of developing reliable methods and accurate models that could be efficiently applied during the design phase of the most critical particle accelerator devices is therefore evident. From a methodological point of view, thermo-mechanical problems have been studied in this thesis with two different approaches: analytical and numerical. Analytical methods allowed to build a good theoretical background in order to gain thorough understanding of dynamic thermo-structural phenomena occurring in case of particle beam impacts. Numerical approach, based on the Finite Element Method (FEM), is essential for the study of complex structures including multi-components systems with contact interfaces as well as material non-linearity. Reliability of developed methods is confirmed via experimental validation of numerical and analytical results.