A Clamped Be Window for the Dump of the HiRadMat Experiment at CERN

At CERN, the High Radiation to Materials facility (HiRadMat) is designed to test accelerator components under the impact of high-intensity pulsed beams and will start operation in 2012. In this frame an LHC TED-type dump was installed at the end of the line, working in nitrogen overpressure, and a 254μm-thick beryllium window was placed as barrier between the inside of the dump and the external atmosphere. Because of the special loading conditions, a clamped window design was especially developed, optimized and implemented, the more standard welded window not being suitable for such loads. Considering then the clamping force and the applied differential pressures, the stresses on the window components were carefully evaluated thanks to empirical as well as numerical models, to guarantee the structural integrity of the beryllium foil. This paper reports on choices and optimizations that led to the final design, presenting also comparative results from different solutions and the detailed results for the adopted one.