HiRadMat at CERN/SPS - A dedicated facility providing high intensity beam pulses to material samples

HiRadMat (High Radiation to Materials), constructed in 2011, is a facility at CERN designed to provide high‐intensity pulsed beams to an irradiation area where material samples as well as accelerator component assemblies (e.g. vacuum windows, high power beam targets, collimators…) can be tested. The facility uses a 440 GeV proton beam extracted from the CERN SPS with a pulse length of up to 7.2 us, and with a maximum pulse energy of 3.4 MJ (3xE13 proton/pulse). In addition to protons, ion beams with energy of 440 GeV/charge and total pulse energy of 21 kJ can be provided. The beam parameters can be tuned to match the needs of each experiment. HiRadMat is not an irradiation facility where large doses on equipment can be accumulated. It is rather a test area designed to perform single pulse experiments to evaluate the effect of high‐intensity pulsed beams on materials or accelerator component assemblies in a controlled environment. The fa‐ cility is designed for a maximum of 1E16 protons per year, distributed among 10 experiments, each having a total of 1E15 protons or about 100 high intensity pulses. This poster will also demonstrate the possibilities for research using this facility and showing examples of upcoming experiments scheduled for the coming beam period starting in autumn 2014. Beam operation to HiRadMat will resume in autumn 2014, initially with proton beam availability, while in early 2015 Argon ions will also be available.