Development, Validation and Application of a Novel Method for Estimating the Thermal Conductance of Critical Interfaces in the Jaws of the LHC Collimation System

The motivation for this project arises from the difficulty in quantifying the manufacturing quality of critical interfaces in the water cooled jaws of the TCTP and TCSP (Target Collimator Tertiary Pickup and Target Collimator Secondary Pickup) collimators. These interfaces play a decisive role in the transfer of heat deposited by the beam towards the cooling system avoiding excessive deformation of the collimator. Therefore, it was necessary to develop a non-destructive method that provides an estimation of the thermal conductance during the acceptance test of the TCTP and TCSP jaws. The method is based on experimental measurements of temperature evolution and numerical simulations. By matching experimental and numerical results it is possible to estimate the thermal conductance in several sections of the jaw. A simplified experimental installation was built to validate the method, then a fully automatic Test-Bench was developed and built for the future acceptance of the TCTP/TCSP jaws which will be manufactured and installed in the LHC. This novel method has shown its validity and has become a decisive tool for the development of the new generation of LHC collimators.