HiRadMat: A New Irradiation Facility for Material Testing at CERN

HiRadMat (High Irradiation to Materials) is a new facility under construction at CERN designed to provide high intensity pulsed beams to an irradiation area where material samples as well as accelerator component assemblies can be tested. The facility uses a 440 GeV proton beam extracted from the CERN SPS with a pulse length of 7.2μs, to a maximum pulse energy of 3.4 MJ. In addition to protons, ion beams with an energy of 173.5 GeV/nucleon and a total pulse energy of 21 kJ can be used. The facility is expected to become operational in autumn 2011. The first tests will include candidate materials and prototype assemblies of LHC collimators foreseen to operate at the ultimate LHC beam powers. Experiments on beam windows and high-power target material options, such as tungsten powder, are also planned. The paper will describe the layout and design parameters for the facility and the way experiments can be operated. Ideas on online and post-irradiation tests and instrumentation will be outlined.